London, 1942 On a warm night in September, Yvonne Rudellat’s house is bombed. Almost everything she owns is destroyed, and though she escapes unharmed, the same cannot be said for Bones, her cat. Yvonne has no one left. She and her husband have long been estranged; her daughter, Jackie, is married and occupied with war work. Yvonne, 45, is no use to anyone—grey-haired, diminutive, always overlooked. As she prepares to take her own life, chance offers her a new path. Almost no one believes she can do it. She is a woman, and should not be put in so much danger. She is too old, too frail for such deadly work. But Britain is on the brink of losing the war, and so she is sent, as an experiment more than anything else, to train as an SOE agent. Yvonne surprises the SOE naysayers. This ‘little old lady’ is a crack shot and a genius with explosives. More importantly, she possesses the lonely courage required to build a resistance network in occupied France. All too soon, she finds herself alone in the country that once was her home. Her mission: set Europe ablaze and clear the way for the women who come after.
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