The Secret Society of Librarians
Publishing in hardback in the UK, Australia, US and Canada in March 2026
Author's Note
In October 2022, I had a life-changing encounter. I met a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor in London and agreed to help her write her life story before it was too late.
Renee Salt is a survivor of two ghettos and three concentration camps. For nearly six years, she stared into the abyss of almost unimaginable darkness. With the exception of two aunts, her entire extended family, numbering almost 200, were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators.
A Mother's Promise
Also known as 'Do Not Cry When I Die' in the US & Canada
In Kate's most recent book, A Mother’s Promise, (Orion) written in collaboration with one of Britain's oldest Holocaust survivors, Renee Salt, Kate located Renee’s father’s grave in Germany, solving an eight decades old mystery.
An instant Sunday Times, Toronto Star, and The Globe and Mail Top Ten bestseller, this genre-defying memoir has been described as ‘mandatory reading’ by the UK’s chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, ‘groundbreaking' by the Jewish Book Council and ‘astonishing’ by historian Joshua Levine.
The Wartime Book Club
Jersey, 1943. When the German Army invades the tranquil island, librarian Grace La Motée is determined to keep her services running. Ordered to destroy books which threaten the Nazi regime, she refuses, instead hiding them away and fighting back by forming a book club: a lifeline to help islanders escape the terror of war, one chapter at a time.
Based on astonishing real events, The Wartime Book Club is a love letter to the power of books in the darkest of times - as well as a moving page-turner that brings to life the remarkable, untold story of an island at war.
The Little Wartime Library
London, 1944. Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While the world remains at war, in East London Clara has created the country’s only underground library, built over the tracks in the disused Bethnal Green tube station. Down here a secret community thrives: with thousands of bunk beds, a nursery, a café and a theatre offering shelter, solace and escape from the bombs that fall above.
Along with her glamorous best friend and library assistant Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground. But as the war drags on, the women’s determination to remain strong in the face of adversity is tested to the limits when it seems it may come at the price of keeping those closest to them alive.
The Stepney Doorstep Society
The unsung and remarkable stories of the women who held London’s East End together during not one, but two world wars.
While the men were away at war it was strong women like Joan, Marie, Babs, Beatty and Minksy who ruled the streets of the East End. Kate Thompson tells the real stories of the war experienced by these matriarchs, a tribe of working-class women in the stinking streets, teeming tenements and sweatshops of East London.
Forget church halls and jam making, these powerfully authentic stories will have you questioning what you thought you knew about wartime women. From standing up to the Kray twins, taking over the London Underground, and crawling out of bombsights, these women fought to survive and protect their community in some of our country’s darkest hours.
Secrets of the Lavender Girls
Stratford 1943. World War Two is still raging across Europe. But for the Lavender Girls at the Yardley factory in East London, there are even more challenges on the home front. Esther, newly married, is learning to juggle life as a working woman with duties as a wife. And she must find a way to help her adopted family on the Shoot, who are battling their own hidden demons…
Headstrong new girl Patsy has a double life that takes her from the East End lipstick belt by day to the stage in the West End at night. But will she be able to keep her secrets hidden from her controlling mother, Queenie?
Secrets of the Homefront Girls
Secrets of the Homefront Girls is a story of the courageous women of World War Two, working in the Yardley factory in East London in 1939.
‘Beauty is your Duty’ was an official propaganda campaign, backed by Winston Churchill, encouraging women to embrace beauty and femininity despite the hardship that they had to endure, and discouraging the notion that devoting attention to their appearances was trivial or vain. Although England may be at war, for the young women working the lipstick production line at Yardley’s cosmetics factory in East London, it’s business as usual.
The Allotment Girls
During the Second World War, life in the iconic Bryant & May Match Factory is grimy and tough. Annie, Rose, Pearl and Millie carry on making matches for the British Army with bombs raining down on them.
Inspired by the Dig for Victory campaign, Annie persuades the owners to start Bryant & May allotment in the factory grounds. With plenty of sweat and toil, the girls eventually carve out a corner of the yard into a green plot full of life and colour.
In the darkest of times, the girls find their allotment a tranquil, happy escape. As the war rages on, the garden becomes a place of community, friendship – and deceit. As the garden thrives and grows, so do the girls' secrets….
The Wedding Girls
If a wedding marks the first day of the rest of your life, then the story starts with the dress. It’s 1936 and the streets of London’s East End are grimy and brutal, but in one corner of Bethnal Green it is forever Hollywood . . .
Herbie Taylor’s photography studio is nestled in the heart of bustling Green Street. Tomboy Stella and troubled Winnie work in Herbie’s studio; their best friend and hopeless romantic Kitty works next door as an apprentice dressmaker. All life passes through the studio, wishing to capture that perfect moment in time.
Kitty works tirelessly to create magical bridal gowns, but with each stitch she wonders if she’ll ever get a chance to wear a white dress. Stella and Winnie sprinkle a dusting of Hollywood glamour over happy newly-weds, but secretly dream of escaping the East End...
Secrets of the Sewing Bee
Orphan Flossy Brown arrives at Trout’s garment factory in Bethnal Green amidst the uncertainty of the Second World War. In 1940s London, each cobbled street is strewn with ghosts of soldiers past, all struggling to make ends meet. For the women of the East End, their battles are on the home front.
Flossy is quickly embraced by the colourful mix of characters working at Trout’s, who have turned their sewing expertise to vital war work. They fast become the family that Flossy has always longed for.
Secrets of the Singer Girls
Kate’s debut novel about the brave, hardworking factory girls who kept the home fires burning in the East End during WW2, became a Sunday Times bestseller on its' release in 2015.
1942. Sixteen-year-old Poppy Percival turns up at the gates of Trout’s clothing factory in Bethnal Green with no idea what her new life might have in store. There to start work as a seamstress and struggling to get to grips with the noise, dirt and devastation of East London, Poppy can’t help but miss the quiet countryside of home. But Poppy harbours a dark secret – one that wrenched her away from all she knew and from which she is still suffering.
Ghost-written Books
Kate researched and wrote four memoirs, from 2011 to 2014.
Aprons and Silver Spoons was a Number 1 Sunday Times bestseller on its release and The Refuge was a Number 5 Sunday Times bestseller.
Whilst working on these books Kate discovered a passion for long form narrative and a fascination for the lives of 20th century women.
