Finalist for the 2019 Foreword Indie Award for General Fiction.

Upon the death of their art-loving parents, thirteen and fourteen year old Jewish sisters are kidnapped by a family friend and taken to a brothel. There they are held captive by their shared shame and by the younger sister's forced addiction to morphine. Love and psychodrama gives them the courage to finally escape Vienna. Once in England, however, Hedy discovers her younger sister Susannah longs to be independent-- and in Italy. But in 1938, despite the safety they each have found among the privileged, they return to Vienna just before Hitler arrives, putting their own lives and those of two children in danger. With the background of anti-Semitism and exploitation, of sex and love and art and dramatic ruses, all during the terrifying rise of fascism in Austria and Italy, Look After Her reveals this truth: no matter how close we are to another human being, even a beloved sister, that's what we are: close-- we all have our own secrets to keep.

Hannah Brown is a former kindergarten, elementary, high school adult, and college teacher. An appetite for film and fine art resulted in two degrees from York University in film, and worke as a screenwriter. Her screenplay, "How to Call Cows" won first prize from Studio D, National Film Board. Her fiction has recently appeared in several North American literary magazines and a short story was chosen as an entry for the 2016 Journey Prize. She lives in Toronto. Look After Her is her debut novel.

Hannah Brown's profile page

• Short-listed, Foreword Indie Awards (General Fiction)

"Packed with action and intrigue, and impeccably paced, Hannah Brown's debut novel Look After Her is a gripping, accomplished piece of feminist historical fiction..."
--Room Magazine

"Here is a voice poignant and alive, offering unusual insights in scintillating dialogue. To leave the last page of this work is to re-enter the world you thought you always knew but which you now recognize anew in Hedy and Susannah. Make no mistake: this is because you have been guided by an author whose rare gift is that of surprise, a manner of holding the reader in generative uncertainty. Hannah Brown's debut novel Look After Her calls us into the challenge and promise of its pulse and world well beyond the that last, utterly-earned page."
--Canisia Lubrin, author of Voodoo Hypothesis

"Hannah Brown's debut novel, Look After Her brings sex, sisters, and psychodrama to a story that will leave you haunted."
--Jess Taylor, author of Just Pervs

"An ambitious and accomplished debut novel, Look After Her follows sisters Hedy and Susannah as they liberate themselves and build new lives against the backdrop of a world marching inexorably to war. Superbly well-paced, the novel evokes a sense of time and place so strong you can taste the Viennese chocolat mit schlag and the Italian espresso, and feel a chilly London winter in your bones."
--Terri Favro, author of Once Upon a Time in West Toronto