It is 1936. Daphne Linden, the unworldly, 18-year-old daughter of a priapic Oxford professor, is sent to finishing school in Germany along with a slew of other nice young girls, all of whom unwittingly get caught up in a period of tumultuous political upheaval. At first, Daphne and her friends are more interested in cream puddings and going out with boys wearing frightfully dashing SS uniforms than paying much attention to the spreading Nazi threat. But the more Daphne opens her eyes to what is happening around her, the more she begins to grasp the unpleasant truths lying just beneath the surface.

WINTER GAMES, by Rachel Johnson. Fig Tree, 2013, 336 pp., £7.99 (paperback)

Seventy years later, Daphne's granddaughter, Francie is a feature writer on a glossy magazine who lives with her "Danish-looking" husband while simultaneously nurturing an ill-advised crush on her editor. When Francie is sent to write a travel feature in Bavaria , she stumbles across a photograph of her grandmother that sets in train a journey of self-discovery.