The Last Lancer

A vanished world. A family torn apart. A daughter’s search for their story.

When the author’s father arrived in post-war Britain as a refugee from Poland, he had no idea what had become of the family he left behind. Decades later, his daughter would begin to uncover the truth.
From the author of A Proper Person to be Detained and The Amber Heart comes a haunting reconstruction of a world erased by war. As millions fled through Lviv in 2022, the exodus stirred echoes of an earlier catastrophe, when Lwów, as the city was then known, was beset by Soviet and Nazi forces. Among the millions displaced were the Czerkawski family, Polish landowners whose lives were shattered by occupation, imprisonment, and exile.

Through archival discoveries, family memory, and a deeply personal journey, Catherine brings to life her aristocratic forebears: her father’s idyllic rural childhood, the family’s fall from privilege, their resilience, and their struggle to survive in the blood-stained borderlands of Central and Eastern Europe.

The Last Lancer is a powerful recreation of a time and place where borders shifted, but the human spirit endured, a tale told with intimacy, insight and deep historical resonance.