Blog Tour: Beyond the Dark Oceans by Alison Huntingford

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Beyond the Dark Oceans

by Alison Huntingford

Thursdays, April 30th - May 21st, 2026

Publication Date: March 31st, 2026

Publisher: Lupin Publications

Pages: 386

Genre: Historical Fiction

A family united, a family divided…

In 1906, the Huntingford family leaves England for a hopeful new life in Canada, but for eldest son Georgy, the promise of opportunity quickly becomes a test of endurance, responsibility, and fate. As he comes of age amid the hardships of immigrant life, the outbreak of the First World War pulls him back across the ocean and into a world forever changed by loss and sacrifice.

When Georgy’s brother disappears in the chaos of war, grief and uncertainty fracture the family he is fighting to hold together. Reunited with his cousin Nellie, Georgy finds solace in a love as powerful as it is forbidden—one that offers hope in the darkest of times while threatening to tear his family apart.

Based on true events, Beyond the Dark Oceans is a moving story of love, loyalty, and resilience, exploring how ordinary lives are shaped—and divided—by extraordinary moments in history.

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This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.

Alison Huntingford

Alison Huntingford is a writer with a deep passion for family history and storytelling. With a background rooted in the rich traditions of the Huntingford family, Alison seeks to honour the stories passed down through generations. She is the author of a successful series of works that explore historical and personal narratives. She is an only child of two only children and so has always felt a distinct lack of family. This has inspired her work.

After an upheaval in her personal life, Alison achieved a degree in humanities with literature through the Open University which helped to give her a new start. A teaching career followed which then led naturally to writing. She is now retired from full-time work, but busier than ever.

In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and their pets, listening to music, going to the cinema, and gardening on her allotment. She also runs the South Hams Authors Network, a local writers collective based in South Devon.

Connect with Alison:

Website • Twitter / X • Bluesky • Facebook • Instagram • Threads Pinterest

Amazon Author Page • BookBub • Goodreads

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Bestselling author Deborah Swift introduces the main characters from her compelling new novel, The Enemy's Wife #HistoricalFiction #WWII #RecommendedReading

The Enemy’s wife

Survivors of War Series

by Deborah Swift

'A fast-paced, beautifully written, and moving story. Refreshing to read a book set in a different theatre of war. Wartime Shanghai jumped off the page'
CLARE FLYNN

A poignant story of the impossible choices we make in the shadow of war, for fans of Daisy Wood and Marius Gabriel.

1941. When Zofia’s beloved husband Haru is conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army, she is left to navigate Japanese-occupied Shanghai alone.

Far from home and surrounded by a country at war, Zofia finds unexpected comfort in a bond with Hilly, a spirited young refugee escaping Nazi-occupied Austria.

As violence tightens its grip on the city, they seek shelter with Theo, Zofia’s American employer. But with every passing day, the horrors of war and Haru’s absence begin to reshape Zofia’s world – and her heart.

Can she still love someone who has become the enemy?

Readers love The Enemy's Wife:

'A gorgeous novel that will truly pull at your heartstrings'
~ CARLY SCHABOWSKI

'I loved The Enemy’s Wife – a gripping, fast-paced and evocative story about the Japanese occupation of Shanghai during WW2 – and really rooted for the brave and selfless central character, Zofia. Highly recommended'

~ ANN BENNETT

'Such an emotional and moving read, grounded in immaculate research that never overshadows the heart of the story'
~ SUZANNE FORTIN

Meet the Characters in The Enemy’s Wife!

Zofia Kowalski

You last met my character Zofia in Last Train to Freedom, where she was a refugee fleeing the Nazis. On that journey she met Haru, a Japanese envoy to Russia, and they are immediately flung into a whirlwind romance, and by the time this book starts, they are married. Their happiness is to be short-lived. When Haru is conscripted into the Japanese army, Zofia is evacuated by the Japanese as a foreign national. Now she is in Shanghai – along with the other Jewish refugees who had made it out of Russia. She does not know if she will ever see her husband again.

Zofia, via Pexels

Zofia is a character that has had to endure many shifts of territory, and has had nowhere to call home for all the war years. To survive, she has had to draw on all her resources. She is now without family or friends in yet another unfamiliar place. As usual, she has managed to find work as a translator, and a place to live, albeit shared with many others. Zofia speaks several languages and works as a translator and coach for Daisy and Jim, the children of Theodore Carter, a rich American.

When the Japanese invade Shanghai, she seeks shelter for herself, and her friend Hilly, with her American employer, a decision that will change her life.

Hildegard (Hilly)

Hilly is a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl who left Austria after the Nazi atrocities of Kristallnacht and has ended up like flotsam in Shanghai, with no relatives and no friends. Zofia’s heart melts at her predicament and she takes Hilly under her wing, sensing there is something broken in Hilly, and that she has endured tragedy in her past. This draws the two together. Zofia feels sorry for this young woman abandoned by everyone and left alone in a strange country. Hilly meanwhile accepts without question that Zofia will look after her, and that the two are inseparable.

Hilly, via Pexels

Hilly is on the cusp of womanhood, and finds it hard to navigate relationships, as she is still suffering from trauma. At the same time, she has an innate love of anything glamorous and is attracted by the high life that Shanghai has to offer. Her blonde hair and blue eyes attract attention in a city like Shanghai. Zofia’s self-appointed task is to keep Hilly safe from the Japanese soldiers looking to prey on a girl like Hilly.

Theodore Carter (Theo)

Theo is an American businessman who runs his own shipping company that he has built from the ground up. Having endured a hard childhood in the dustbowl, he is determined his children should have everything that was denied to him as a child. However, his wife and two children are evacuated as soon as the Japanese invasion becomes likely.

Theo, via Pexels

Thero has a strong sense of duty and fairness, which is severely tested when the Japanese threaten everything he holds dear. Once the takeover of the city is complete, Theo finds himself on the wrong side of the Japanese law, and ends up in prison and then in a camp. Whilst there, he discovers the true meaning of endurance and of friendship, and how much courage it takes to stand up against the enemy.

Haru Kimura

Zofia’s husband Haru is an intellectual. He is widely read and enjoys western culture such as ballet, and Russian literature such as Dostoevsky. When he is conscripted into the Japanese army, he must embrace the idea of ‘Bushido’ the Samurai warrior code that means a Japanese soldier must never surrender. To comply with this, the soldier recruits are beaten into submission, so they will accept that if victory does not come, then to die for their country is the only option.

Haru, via Pexels

As his journey continues, Haru transforms into one of Japan’s elite soldiers. But has he lost all humanity, and can the old Haru ever be brought back to life?

© Deborah Swift www.deborahswift.com

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Deborah Swift

Deborah used to be a costume designer for the BBC, before becoming a writer. Now she lives in an old English school house in a village full of 17th Century houses, near the glorious Lake District. Deborah has an award-winning historical fiction blog at her website www.deborahswift.com. 

Deborah loves to write about how extraordinary events in history have transformed the lives of ordinary people, and how the events of the past can live on in her books and still resonate today.

Her WW2 novel Past Encounters was a BookViral Award winner, and The Poison Keeper was a winner of the Wishing Shelf Book of the Decade.

Connect with Deborah:

Website • Twitter / X • Facebook • TikTok • Pinterest

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Join us as award-winning author David Loux introduces members of the Laux family – American settlers of French heritage #HistoricalFiction #FamilyHistory #RecommendedReading

The Lost Seigneur

A Chateau Laux Odyssey, Book #2

by David Loux

The Lost Seigneur is a sequel to the award-winning Chateau Laux.

It is the story of Jean-Pierre du Laux, a nobleman in southern France, who was wrongly imprisoned during a time of religious intolerance and subsequently endeavors to return to his family. Many years have passed since he saw them, and his long incarceration has broken his health.

Any reunion would clearly have been impossible, without the unlikely help of a youthful companion that he meets along the way.

Meet the Laux family!

While multiple characters play key roles, the main characters of The Lost Seigneur are Magdalena Laux Kraymer, who lives in a château on the edge of the frontier in the American colony of Penn’s Woods, which we now know as Pennsylvania; and her grandfather, Jean-Pierre du Laux, who is a Protestant nobleman in southern France.

The book begins and ends with Magdalena, who is married to a colonial assemblyman and who has chosen to live alone rather than follow her husband to Philadelphia.  Her conflict is two-fold.  On the one hand she is challenged by her marital arrangements.  On the other, she receives a letter announcing the imminent arrival of a grandfather that she didn’t know she had and is faced with the challenge of what to do with this information.

At the heart of the story and the catalyst for all that transpires is the odyssey of Seigneur Jean-Pierre du Laux, a man who suffered wrongful imprisonment during a time of religious intolerance and an incarceration that lasted for over thirty years.  He left his French manoir on a visit to Versailles to protest the Dragonnades, which the king was using to coerce Protestant conversion to Catholicism, and never returned home.

His son, Pierre, who was Magdalena’s father, assumed the seigneur had abandoned both him and his mother, and blamed the seigneur for the mother’s subsequent death.  Carrying this grievance with him, he fled to Penn’s Woods, where he married and started a family in an attempt at a new life.

After discovering that her grandfather was alive, Magdalena set about trying to reunite him with her family and Jean-Pierre shared this goal.  After his long confinement, he sought to return to his wife and child, but there were both emotional and physical barriers to the success of this endeavor.  Magdalena must contend with a father who blames the seigneur for the death of his mother, who was a Cathar; and Jean-Pierre must contend with an aging body and the additional burden of a health that has been broken by confinement.  In addition to other things, he must decide which is more important, his position as a nobleman, with a legacy that went back hundreds of years, or his roles as husband and father.

An overarching storyline is the mass movement of European settlers to the American colonies, some for gainful employment, some as a means of escape, and some, as in the case of Jean-Pierre, as a way of restoring broken family ties.  The settlers didn’t come to the colonies with a clean slate.  They brought their religious, cultural and familial baggage with them, for better or for worse.

We think we are who we are, without truly knowing what that is.  As children, we need parents and institutions to tell us what to do and how to do it in order to survive.  The voices of parents, teachers and religious leaders rebound in whatever conscious awareness that we have.  As adults, however, we have the opportunity, if not an obligation, to reason for ourselves, and much of the conflict resolution in The Lost Seigneur has to do with the decisions that various members of the Laux family make.

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David Loux

David Loux is the author of Chateau Laux, a critically acclaimed, award-winning novel that tells the story of a shocking incident in eighteenth century America. His second novel, The Lost Seigneur, expands on the themes detailed in Chateau Laux, and completes the story of a French family’s migration to America in the eighteenth century.

He lives in the Eastern Sierra with his wife, Lynn.

Connect with David:

Website • Twitter / X • Instagram

Amazon Author Page • BookBub • Goodreads