A bestselling, gritty author who produces bold, colourful characters and riveting storylines.

Jana Petken is a bestselling historical fiction novelist and screenwriter.

She is critically acclaimed as a bestselling, gritty author who produces bold, colourful characters and riveting storylines. She is the recipient of numerous major international awards for her works of historical fiction.

Before life as an author, she served in the British Royal Navy. During her service, she studied Naval Law and history. After the Navy, she worked for British Airways and turned to writing after an accident on board an aircraft forced her to retire prematurely.

The German Half-Bloods

Germany, September 1939. At the outbreak of War, Dieter Vogel and his family face catastrophic events and separation as each member embarks on their deadly paths towards survival, love, and freedom.

Dieter Vogel, a German industrialist, believes in protecting his family at all costs, but in a bid to keep his English wife and children safe, he is plunged into a well of deceit that tears the family apart.

Doctor Paul Vogel is coerced into working in the Nazi eugenics programme and soon discovers that sterilising handicapped and mentally-ill Germans is just a prelude to a more lethal plan against those the Reich deem unworthy of life. Paul, trapped by the SS, seeks help from the unlikeliest of people and is plunged into a world of espionage and murder.

British Army Major, Max Vogel, is attached to The British Intelligence Services and Winston Churchill’s Special Operations Executive. His missions in occupied Europe are fraught with danger, and his adulterous affair with a woman he cannot give up leads him deeper into the quagmire of treachery and lies.

Wilmot Vogel dreams of winning the Iron Cross, but when he confronts a mass killing of Jews in Poland, his idolatry of Hitler is shaken to its roots, and he finds himself imprisoned in the infamous Dachau concentration camp with no release date in sight.

Hannah Vogel has no ambition other than to marry her English fiancé, Frank, before the lines of war are drawn. Against her father’s wishes, she leaves Berlin on the eve of the German invasion of Poland, but when she arrives in England, she learns that Frank is not the civilian engineer he claims to be.

The Vogels: On All Fronts

European citizens feel the full force of German injustice, but not all are willing to bend the knee. From France to Poland, Resistance groups fight from the shadows to thwart Nazi rule and hinder their goal to exterminate Jews.

In Russia, Wilmot Vogel struggles to survive the ravages of a frigid winter, compounded by the German army’s lack of progress. Hit by a surprise Russian attack on the front lines, however, he finds himself facing an even greater challenge than the freezing weather and Soviet bullets.

In Łódź, Poland, an idealistic doctor is resolved to oppose the Third Reich, but is he willing to betray his country? Will a Gestapo major find the answers he’s looking for? Can a ghetto Jew avoid transportation to a Nazi extermination camp?

Can two spies rekindle their friendship, or will past betrayals become hurdles too great to surmount? Can Britain’s MI6 maintain the upper hand in a contest against the German Abwehr? Who wins when one man fights for British interests whilst the other seeks to undermine them?

In the darkest days of war, love flourishes. Two women with very different paths are led to one man who changes the course of their lives forever – but only one will win his heart.

Before the Brightest Dawn

In The German Half-Bloods and The Vogels, Jana Petken followed the turbulent lives of an Anglo-German family as they forged their paths through the Second World War. Now, the conflict intensifies in the Soviet States, North Africa, France, and the growing resistance movement in Poland.

Will Max, Paul, and Wilmot Vogel survive the most ruthless phase of the war to date?

Max takes a path to momentous events in North Africa where he balances undercover games of espionage in decadent Cairo with dangerous missions behind the German Afrika Korps’ lines.

Paul’s loyalty to the Third Reich continues to wane as Germany’s extermination programmes in Poland expand, and he is stalked by the new Kriminalinspektor, Manfred Krüger. Can he stay one step ahead of a man who has been ordered to destroy him?

Wilmot faces new challenges in the Afrika Korps, but is he mentally and physically prepared to lead his men into Libya’s fiery desert and against the British 8th Army?

Before the Brightest Dawn, Book 3 of the Half-Bloods Trilogy, concludes the story of the inextricably entangled fates of three brothers … through a war that becomes increasingly brutal and cruel.

Guardian of Secrets

After fleeing from an abusive husband accused of murder, Celia Merrill becomes embroiled in a Spanish Civil War.

Celia’s two sons march under opposing banners, whilst her twin daughters take different paths; one to the Catholic Church and the other to the battlefields. And in the shadow of war, a sinister villain from the past resurfaces.

“Three generations struggle in this suspenseful and compelling saga, which begins in 1912, Kent, England, and ends during the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War.”