V for Victory

Paris, 1940. Thirteen-year-old Charles Mercier watches German troops occupy his city while his family copes with absence, fear, shortages and the new rules of collaboration and surveillance. Inspired by forbidden broadcasts and the spread of the V symbol, he begins with small acts of defiance—chalk marks and painted messages intended to remind Parisians that occupation need not mean acceptance.

As Charles grows older, those gestures draw him closer to the wider culture of resistance and expose his family to increasing danger. The novel follows him from the early occupation towards the liberation of Paris, using a fictional coming-of-age story to explore how resistance could begin through propaganda and civic disobedience before becoming organised clandestine action. It expands McKay’s earlier 2019 short story into a full-length novel.