• Once the Deed Is Done by Rachel Seiffert
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Once the Deed Is Done

  • Author
    • Rachel Seiffert
£18.99
£18.99

Anticipated publication date

Mar 06, 2025

We will deliver the product within a reasonable period of time following the publication date

The publication date is an estimated date only and is subject to change.

We anticipate that the book will be published on this date. However, should the estimated publication date change for whatever reason, we will notify you within a reasonable period of time.

The new novel from the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Dark Room and A Boy in Winter


'A complex, intelligent, deeply compassionate novel about the unglamorous aftermath of war . . . A brilliant piece of story-telling - stubbornly hopeful' ANDREW MILLER

'I read Once the Deed Is Done with great pleasure . . . Great characters taking us deep into the physical challenges and moral quandaries of the time' TIM PEARS
'I love that her novels take me to unexplored places and times . . . she has brought to life a complex interaction between survivors on both sides with humanity and compassion' LINDA GRANT
To be truly alive means having to make choices. To be truly alive is also, quite simply, to love.

Northern Germany, 1945. Dead of night and dead of winter, a boy hears soldiers and sees strangers - forced labourers - fleeing across the heathland by his small town: shawls and skirts in the snowfall. The end days are close, war brings risk and chance, and Benno is witness to something he barely understands.

Peace brings more soldiers - but English this time - and Red Cross staff officers. Ruth, on her first posting from London, is given charge of a refugee camp on the heathland, crowded with former forced labourers. As ever more keep arriving, she hears whispers, rumours of dark secrets about that snowy night.

The townspeople close ranks, shutting their mouths and minds to the winter's events, but the town children are curious about the refugees on their doorstep, and Benno can't carry his secret alone.

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  • Published: Mar 06 2025
  • Pages: 464
  • ISBN: 9780349014166
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Press Reviews

  • Tim Pears

    I read Once the Deed is Done with great pleasure . . . Once again, Rachel Seiffert uncovers a little regarded realm of history, here exploring the pain and confusion of displaced persons at the end of the Second World War which hardly any novels have yet done. Great characters - taking us deep into the physical challenges and moral quandaries of the time

  • Linda Grant

    I love that her novels take me to unexplored places and times. The forgotten period of the DP (Displaced People) camps in the immediate aftermath of the war has always fascinated me and she has brought to life a complex interaction between survivors on both sides with humanity and compassion

  • Andrew Miller

    The language has a directness that wouldn't be out of place in a children's story . . . it gives it, despite the historical precision, something of the feel of myth or fable. A complex, intelligent, deeply compassionate novel about the unglamorous aftermath of war. The research and imaginative recreation of the period is so impressive. A brilliant piece of story-telling - stubbornly hopeful. I hope it finds lots of readers. It deserves to and I think it will.