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We Are Made
You’re grieving, you’re falling in love and you’re skint. On top of it all, Europe’s going to Hell in a handcart.
Things can’t get any worse, can they?
London, 1938. William is grieving over his former teacher and mentor, killed fighting for the Republicans in Spain. As Europe slides towards war, he abandons his dream of a life in academia to support his family by working in a factory manufacturing Spitfire parts. And then he bumps into Elizabeth, an old school friend. It isn’t long before the pair are falling in love – but Elizabeth is no longer the girl he remembers.
Caught in a web of counter-espionage, street-fighting, family tension and conflicting desires, William investigates suspicious behaviour at the factory, unleashing tragic consequences that catapult him into the dangerous world of Franco’s Spain, where he must confront what it means to be civilised.
Things can’t get any worse, can they?
London, 1938. William is grieving over his former teacher and mentor, killed fighting for the Republicans in Spain. As Europe slides towards war, he abandons his dream of a life in academia to support his family by working in a factory manufacturing Spitfire parts. And then he bumps into Elizabeth, an old school friend. It isn’t long before the pair are falling in love – but Elizabeth is no longer the girl he remembers.
Caught in a web of counter-espionage, street-fighting, family tension and conflicting desires, William investigates suspicious behaviour at the factory, unleashing tragic consequences that catapult him into the dangerous world of Franco’s Spain, where he must confront what it means to be civilised.
374 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 17, 2024
11 people are currently reading
16 people want to read
About the author
John Ludlam
1 book1 followerJohn Ludlam was born in 1960, in north London. He was educated in Enfield and Newcastle upon Tyne. The first words he wrote for public consumption were punk rock lyrics.
Following spells as a sound engineer, a teacher of English and a stagehand, he became a journalist, working as a sub-editor for the South China Morning Post and a video producer for the Visnews and Reuters news agencies.
More than thirty years spent covering international news, including assignments in Iraq, Jerusalem and Hong Kong, taught him that geopolitics will never leave us alone. We Are Made is the first in a series of novels examining what geopolitics does to people.
John lives in Teignmouth, on the south Devon coast.
Following spells as a sound engineer, a teacher of English and a stagehand, he became a journalist, working as a sub-editor for the South China Morning Post and a video producer for the Visnews and Reuters news agencies.
More than thirty years spent covering international news, including assignments in Iraq, Jerusalem and Hong Kong, taught him that geopolitics will never leave us alone. We Are Made is the first in a series of novels examining what geopolitics does to people.
John lives in Teignmouth, on the south Devon coast.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 1, 2025
I really enjoyed this novel! I particularly liked the slow pace leading to some action... William, the main character, is greatly appealing through his realistic way of thinking and acting. On top of this, his integrity and faithfulness to friends and ethics gives him a very human side. He is not perfect, and that makes his character very convincing and realistic. I loved the fact that after studying the classics, he fully understands the risk of war and its consequences. This is a very interesting side of his personality. Some developments might appear a bit over the top, but this did not disturb me. I enjoyed the conclusion and definitely wish to read more of his adventures! A great novel!
I have received a digital copy of this novel from NetGalley and I have voluntarily written an honest review.
I have received a digital copy of this novel from NetGalley and I have voluntarily written an honest review.
January 12, 2026
They’d found him at last, one of the principal characters in John Ludlam’s World War II espionage thriller, “We Are Made,” says of the images of shelling and bombing from the First World War that reasserted themselves years later to rob her father of any remaining good nights’ sleep he might have been able to enjoy as he lay dying from cancer.
“So he was still in it at the end, years and years later, years and years of living peacefully … and dancing … with my mum and walking with me in the park … but at the end, he was right back in the trenches, being shelled the same as if he was twenty-three,” she says about her father, prompting the character to whom she’s speaking, kindred spirit William Hand, to remark that “I think it’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard.”
More than just an arresting story for him, though, her account of her father’s demons, but also eminently relatable, with how his own father had been gassed and shelled in the trenches, leaving him bitter enough – “I left hope behind me in France,” he says – that he’s vociferously opposed to the country getting “dragged into Europe's problems again,” and vexing his son with his brushing aside of horrific accounts from the Continent as “not our concern” and buying into the fiction of benign intent from Hitler or his British puppet, Mosley.
“Britain’s answer to Mussolini or Hitler,” the latter is characterized as by another of the book’s main characters, Elizabeth Fay, who is something of the novel’s moral center with her salient pronouncements – “we have to come back to being good in the end,” for instance – and with whom William has been in love since their childhood.
She’s also the one who enlists William in undercover efforts to flush out enemy activity even as he’s troubled by the lengths to which she’s willing to go to assist the Allied cause, including her purposeful romancing of a fascist-leaning acquaintance of his who's more naive than really committed. (“So you’re using your Mata Hari skills,” he chides her, “to persuade a basically decent, if misguided, man to do something morally wrong?”)
Still, while the novel gives due nod to the moral complexities in espionage, there’s never any real question about the rightness of William’s and his compatriots’ cause, which is further fueled by their taking in Picasso’s “Guernica,” which so vividly depicted the particular horror of the Spanish Civil War.
Indeed, the novel opens with William attending the funeral of a beloved mentor of his who was felled while fighting in the War, of whose sheer awfulness the writer Dorothy Parker said, “it is incredible, it is fantastic, it is absolutely beyond all belief,” a powerful expression of the moral outrage which had volunteers from all over the world, including cohorts of William’s, ready to take their places at the barricades.
Not the direct focus, though, the fighting in Spain, of Ludlam’s novel, which is situated a thousand miles away, in England, where William is employed at a factory which produces parts for RAF Spitfires and where he is regularly bullied by a brute of a man named Cable, who in his small cruelties is microcosmic of the barbarity of the larger war in the way that a small school incident was microcosmic of the larger war in John Knowles’ classic “A Separate Peace,” with which Ludlam’s novel shares not only a finely wrought evocation of the domestic backdrop of a whole world at peril but also especially fine writing (particularly evident for me, the latter, in a scene in which an odious character is checking out Elizabeth's body, “fouling her myrtle shirt dress where his gaze lands.”)
Absorbing and timely, in short, Ludlam’s novel, especially in these fraught times in America, when the prospect of a least an abridged form of the book’s fascism has perhaps never seemed so scarily a possibility for me than in the pronouncements of Trump henchman Stephen Miller, who could be Cable’s more educated brother with his extolling of might-makes-right.
“So he was still in it at the end, years and years later, years and years of living peacefully … and dancing … with my mum and walking with me in the park … but at the end, he was right back in the trenches, being shelled the same as if he was twenty-three,” she says about her father, prompting the character to whom she’s speaking, kindred spirit William Hand, to remark that “I think it’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard.”
More than just an arresting story for him, though, her account of her father’s demons, but also eminently relatable, with how his own father had been gassed and shelled in the trenches, leaving him bitter enough – “I left hope behind me in France,” he says – that he’s vociferously opposed to the country getting “dragged into Europe's problems again,” and vexing his son with his brushing aside of horrific accounts from the Continent as “not our concern” and buying into the fiction of benign intent from Hitler or his British puppet, Mosley.
“Britain’s answer to Mussolini or Hitler,” the latter is characterized as by another of the book’s main characters, Elizabeth Fay, who is something of the novel’s moral center with her salient pronouncements – “we have to come back to being good in the end,” for instance – and with whom William has been in love since their childhood.
She’s also the one who enlists William in undercover efforts to flush out enemy activity even as he’s troubled by the lengths to which she’s willing to go to assist the Allied cause, including her purposeful romancing of a fascist-leaning acquaintance of his who's more naive than really committed. (“So you’re using your Mata Hari skills,” he chides her, “to persuade a basically decent, if misguided, man to do something morally wrong?”)
Still, while the novel gives due nod to the moral complexities in espionage, there’s never any real question about the rightness of William’s and his compatriots’ cause, which is further fueled by their taking in Picasso’s “Guernica,” which so vividly depicted the particular horror of the Spanish Civil War.
Indeed, the novel opens with William attending the funeral of a beloved mentor of his who was felled while fighting in the War, of whose sheer awfulness the writer Dorothy Parker said, “it is incredible, it is fantastic, it is absolutely beyond all belief,” a powerful expression of the moral outrage which had volunteers from all over the world, including cohorts of William’s, ready to take their places at the barricades.
Not the direct focus, though, the fighting in Spain, of Ludlam’s novel, which is situated a thousand miles away, in England, where William is employed at a factory which produces parts for RAF Spitfires and where he is regularly bullied by a brute of a man named Cable, who in his small cruelties is microcosmic of the barbarity of the larger war in the way that a small school incident was microcosmic of the larger war in John Knowles’ classic “A Separate Peace,” with which Ludlam’s novel shares not only a finely wrought evocation of the domestic backdrop of a whole world at peril but also especially fine writing (particularly evident for me, the latter, in a scene in which an odious character is checking out Elizabeth's body, “fouling her myrtle shirt dress where his gaze lands.”)
Absorbing and timely, in short, Ludlam’s novel, especially in these fraught times in America, when the prospect of a least an abridged form of the book’s fascism has perhaps never seemed so scarily a possibility for me than in the pronouncements of Trump henchman Stephen Miller, who could be Cable’s more educated brother with his extolling of might-makes-right.
February 10, 2026
I received a free copy of this book via The Niche Reader
1938, the time between the two world wars in Northern London was a period of change for school friends who returned for the funeral of a beloved mentor, cricket coach, and professor. Cedric decided his place was in a foxhole fighting the fascist rise of Franco, and lost his life in something he believed in.
William, Bertie, Peter, and Elizabeth set out on wild adventures to save England from spies working for Germany and Spain, who have obtained blueprints of aircraft parts manufactured in Enfield. Friends are made and lost as these friends band together to outsmart the spies.
Elizabeth is a de facto femfatale befriending the factory owner's son, Stephen, who may or may not be on the wrong side. Black shirts, riots, the fear of being shot, killed, or captured as they travel between a free Gibraltar, Spain, and Enfield. Saving and losing new friends as they assist in the escape of two homosexual men who would have been beaten, tortured, or killed, all the while chasing Pinn, a swarthy Spaniard bent on killing and stealing.
While the manufacturing plant is fictional, the troubling times in England were not. While people walked around thinking there would never be a war as bad as World War I, there are others who see the future of war and freedom being taken away by those who followed Franco in Spain and Hitler in Germany.
Gibraltar was a neutral country in 1938, and travel between England and Spain went through it was still not easy. It was no longer a place to spend one’s holiday, but a refuge of sorts for a brief time, while the four friends work to undermine Pinn and perhaps Stephen as well, so that anything they provide to the enemy would maybe be suspected of the truth.
The first few chapters, to me, seemed to drag on, but once the main storyline began it was a most enjoyable read.
1938, the time between the two world wars in Northern London was a period of change for school friends who returned for the funeral of a beloved mentor, cricket coach, and professor. Cedric decided his place was in a foxhole fighting the fascist rise of Franco, and lost his life in something he believed in.
William, Bertie, Peter, and Elizabeth set out on wild adventures to save England from spies working for Germany and Spain, who have obtained blueprints of aircraft parts manufactured in Enfield. Friends are made and lost as these friends band together to outsmart the spies.
Elizabeth is a de facto femfatale befriending the factory owner's son, Stephen, who may or may not be on the wrong side. Black shirts, riots, the fear of being shot, killed, or captured as they travel between a free Gibraltar, Spain, and Enfield. Saving and losing new friends as they assist in the escape of two homosexual men who would have been beaten, tortured, or killed, all the while chasing Pinn, a swarthy Spaniard bent on killing and stealing.
While the manufacturing plant is fictional, the troubling times in England were not. While people walked around thinking there would never be a war as bad as World War I, there are others who see the future of war and freedom being taken away by those who followed Franco in Spain and Hitler in Germany.
Gibraltar was a neutral country in 1938, and travel between England and Spain went through it was still not easy. It was no longer a place to spend one’s holiday, but a refuge of sorts for a brief time, while the four friends work to undermine Pinn and perhaps Stephen as well, so that anything they provide to the enemy would maybe be suspected of the truth.
The first few chapters, to me, seemed to drag on, but once the main storyline began it was a most enjoyable read.
February 20, 2026
So much to enjoy in this beautifully written page turner of a novel.
North London, 1938. William grieves the loss of his beloved school teacher in Spain, while his own dreams for the future seem increasingly hopeless. War is approaching and all the loyalties he has ever known are called into question.
We Are Made is a beautifully written, compulsive unravelling of ordinary lives in the face of war. Gentle William, more concerned with cricket, and his infatuation with his old school friend Elizabeth, is propelled into an impossibly dangerous new world as Europe hurtles towards crisis.
William is a wonderful protagonist, adrift in his grief but increasingly resourceful. His voice and tone are perfectly pitched, credible without feeling old fashioned. His journey into the depths of the fascist movement is chilling. The author draws together the intensely complex pieces of this political puzzle with impressive clarity, using carefully drawn individuals to lead us across countries and make sense of the political and personal drivers that propel Europe towards catastrophe. The writing feels both fresh and authentic: the scene in which William attends a British fascist rally is a chilling moment of political truth telling - still horribly relevant. The setting of the story in 1938 is frightening and visceral. William’s father, who suffered injury and trauma in World War One, is a terrible reminder of the effects of war on individuals - the reader knows what William’s future holds better than he can himself.
North London, 1938. William grieves the loss of his beloved school teacher in Spain, while his own dreams for the future seem increasingly hopeless. War is approaching and all the loyalties he has ever known are called into question.
We Are Made is a beautifully written, compulsive unravelling of ordinary lives in the face of war. Gentle William, more concerned with cricket, and his infatuation with his old school friend Elizabeth, is propelled into an impossibly dangerous new world as Europe hurtles towards crisis.
William is a wonderful protagonist, adrift in his grief but increasingly resourceful. His voice and tone are perfectly pitched, credible without feeling old fashioned. His journey into the depths of the fascist movement is chilling. The author draws together the intensely complex pieces of this political puzzle with impressive clarity, using carefully drawn individuals to lead us across countries and make sense of the political and personal drivers that propel Europe towards catastrophe. The writing feels both fresh and authentic: the scene in which William attends a British fascist rally is a chilling moment of political truth telling - still horribly relevant. The setting of the story in 1938 is frightening and visceral. William’s father, who suffered injury and trauma in World War One, is a terrible reminder of the effects of war on individuals - the reader knows what William’s future holds better than he can himself.
February 8, 2026
We Are Made opens a planned series about ordinary people swept into conflict, and it shows the assurance of a writer who has spent three decades reporting from some of the world’s most volatile places. Set between London and Franco’s Spain, the story weaves together politics, espionage, resilience, and the many forms of love, love for another person, and love for one’s country. The plot is intricate and richly detailed, and although it took time to settle into its many strands, the narrative gradually tightened its grip. Once it did, I found it genuinely hard to put the book down. Much of the book’s impact comes from the characters themselves. William Hand and Elizabeth Fay, once school friends, share similar backgrounds and a quiet, mutual affection. Yet the looming threat of war and their own convictions keep that connection from becoming something more. Elizabeth’s decision to draw William into the dangerous world of espionage changes the course of both their lives. It may be a story about “ordinary” people, but these characters are anything but. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward with real anticipation to the next in the series. Together, the complex narrative and these vividly drawn characters make We Are Made a compelling start to the series, and one that leaves me eager for what comes next.
I received a free copy of this book via The Niche Reader
I received a free copy of this book via The Niche Reader
June 27, 2025
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I don’t read a lot of historical fiction. And when I do, it needs to have a plot to intrigue me and I need to read the synopsis and think, “Yes, I can get on board with that.” I’m so glad I gave this one a chance and it didn’t let me down. Historical + crime + espionage? That sounds like a bit of me!
We Are Made is a compelling historical fiction novel with an espionage twist that I effortlessly sank into and thoroughly enjoyed! I loved the characters in this book, especially William and Elizabeth; what they go through was brave and selfless, yet dangerous and brutal at times. The plot, although heavy and complex in parts, was certainly gripping. The tension and uncertainty was so unexpected, but a pleasant surprise, and everything was written with such passion. I’m not usually a fan of politics in a book, and I can’t say I enjoyed these parts personally, but if you do love some political drama in your historical books, this will be right up your alley. A fantastic plot and a genuinely captivating writing style that will suck you in. I’m looking forward to reading whatever comes next from this author!
We Are Made is a compelling historical fiction novel with an espionage twist that I effortlessly sank into and thoroughly enjoyed! I loved the characters in this book, especially William and Elizabeth; what they go through was brave and selfless, yet dangerous and brutal at times. The plot, although heavy and complex in parts, was certainly gripping. The tension and uncertainty was so unexpected, but a pleasant surprise, and everything was written with such passion. I’m not usually a fan of politics in a book, and I can’t say I enjoyed these parts personally, but if you do love some political drama in your historical books, this will be right up your alley. A fantastic plot and a genuinely captivating writing style that will suck you in. I’m looking forward to reading whatever comes next from this author!
January 27, 2026
The plot, characters and prose of this book are so beautifully crafted, you can’t help falling in love with it. There is a quiet, everyday realism about the lives of the main protagonists that draws the reader into caring for them and wanting to fight their battles alongside them as the progress of intrigue accelerates. Importantly, there are moments of humour and human vulnerability that temper the narrative and, from North London to Southern Spain, a compelling sense of place, all of which combine to raise this well above the usual WWII nostalgia genre. The realism is slightly reminiscent of Conrad’s The Secret Agent, and the research underpinning the story never intrusive - as is so often the mistake. This novel and its people will stay with me for a long time. I cannot recommend it enough.
January 25, 2026
Clearly well researched and extremely well written. The wartime story follows young William as he is drawn via a menial job making plane parts in a factory in his home town, into a world of suspicion, intrigue, subterfuge, and international skullduggery. William is attracted to Elizabeth, but she is in deeper than he could have known. As the perplexing clues
start to fit into place, William and his friends gradually realise they must do their bit for the common good and head South.
I was gripped by the story and couldn't put the book down. It has a bit of everything; love, hate, fear, bravery, heroes, villains, action and adventure. At times, the excitement and tension had my heart pumping, and I found myself on board, willing William to succeed.
Recommended!!
start to fit into place, William and his friends gradually realise they must do their bit for the common good and head South.
I was gripped by the story and couldn't put the book down. It has a bit of everything; love, hate, fear, bravery, heroes, villains, action and adventure. At times, the excitement and tension had my heart pumping, and I found myself on board, willing William to succeed.
Recommended!!
February 7, 2026
I enjoued this book a lot. The characters are not always who they seem to be, which kept me gripped and provided some interesting twists and turns. The protagonist is quirky in a good way and I found myslef rooting for him throughout.
I enjoyed the writing style - descriptive and showing, not telling. And I also enjoyed the mix of genres - part historical, part thriller, part action, part coming of age, really.
I would read more by this author in future.
I received a free copy of this book via The Niche Reader.
I enjoyed the writing style - descriptive and showing, not telling. And I also enjoyed the mix of genres - part historical, part thriller, part action, part coming of age, really.
I would read more by this author in future.
I received a free copy of this book via The Niche Reader.
January 27, 2026
'We Are Made' is, without a doubt, a page-turner of a novel, vividly rendered and with compelling characters. I'm not usually drawn to historical fiction, let alone writing set around World War II, yet found myself gripped by the well-researched plot and plight of William and Elizabeth - and motivated to read more about the history of fascism once I'd put the book down. Many of the scenes felt cinematic - perhaps one for the big screen someday!
February 16, 2026
A book doesn’t have to be a fast pace thriller to be an engrossing one, sometimes just by being a well researched one with engrossing characters and slow built excitement makes it an amazing read. This book falls in the latter category, making it a page turner.
There is spying made by ordinary people, and dangerous situations that become more and more extreme as we go deeper into the story. We get immersed in the story and how the circumstances affect and change the lives of the protagonists
There is spying made by ordinary people, and dangerous situations that become more and more extreme as we go deeper into the story. We get immersed in the story and how the circumstances affect and change the lives of the protagonists
January 22, 2026
If you like accurate historical novels mixed with espionage then this is the read for you. I’m expecting the film rights to be snapped up soon . Loved it.
January 24, 2026
A beautifully crafted debut novel, seamlessly blending fact and fiction with a meticulous attention to detail. If you are a fan of Robert Harris you will not be dissapointed.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews