Before she became Midnight, she was simply Jessie Fordham - a brilliant, stubborn girl who refused to walk away from the shadows that shaped her.

France, 1926. A frightened child runs from the black waters of Midnight Lake and stumbles into a world of secrets buried deep beneath the surface. It is Jessie's first taste of fear, and her first lesson in never turning her back on what she does not yet understand.

Egypt, 1929. The Fordham family's glamorous new life hides a darker undercurrent. Jessie's beloved uncle is drawn into espionage, gambling and treason, and the consequences reach back across continents. When Jessie loses her mother and watches her father retreat further into the mysteries of intelligence work, her childhood collapses under the weight of secrets, lies and shifting loyalties.

England and France, 1930-1939. As Jessie grows into a fierce young woman unwilling to be defined by duty alone, Europe stands on the brink of war. Diplomatic halls whisper of betrayal. A spy is loose inside the British Embassy in Paris. Old enemies circle. And Jessie's family, fractured, brilliant, dangerous, is right at the centre of it.

Before bullets and sabotage, before her legend in the Resistance, this is the story of how Jessie Fordham was forged: in grief, in courage, in fire.

Walking Away from Midnight is the powerful first novel in The Midnight Series, a sweeping, character-driven historical saga that traces the making of one of wartime fiction's most compelling heroines.