Woman at the Door
A Novel, Adapted Stage Play, and Screenplay
by
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In interwar Vienna, Marianne Josepha Rosensopf rises from domestic servant to announcer in the grand Strauss household — the woman who stands at the threshold to rooms where history unfolds unseen. Through her quiet post, she witnesses power up close: Nazi leaders, Allied generals, and the dangerous illusion of ceremony that shields brutality behind order. Near the end of the war, Marianne becomes the unwilling witness to a crime committed by a powerful officer — and is sworn to silence, forced to flee her city carrying a truth no one will protect. Torn between two men — a principled British soldier and a hunted resistance fighter — Marianne makes a choice that binds her to a life built on secrecy. She escapes to rural England, where marriage, motherhood, and newfound community promise peace — until the past finds her again. When the man from Vienna reappears — and witnesses begin to die — Marianne realises the silence that once kept her safe may now place her child in deadly danger. The Woman at the Door is a gripping, intimate historical thriller and love story — about the unseen witnesses of history, the moral cost of survival, and the extraordinary courage of a mother determined to protect the truth by keeping it hidden.
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About the Book
After witnessing a powerful British officer’s brutal actions in wartime Vienna, a former servant escapes to rural England and builds a new life—only to find her buried past threatening the man she loves, the child she must protect, and the deadly secret she has sworn to keep. Woman at the Door, the Story, adapted Stage Play and adapted Screenplay, bring together an original story, its stage adaptation, and its screenplay in a single, distinctive volume. Presented together in one publication, the three forms illuminate the narrative’s emotional layers, shifting perspectives and dramatic possibilities in a single body of work. The story invites readers and audiences into the characters’ inner lives, revealing the memories, motives and tensions beneath each encounter. The adapted play then transforms those subtleties into dialogue, action, silence and stagecraft. Together, they offer drama producers, directors and cast members a richer understanding of the work—showing not only what happens, but what remains unspoken. Both a compelling literary experience and a practical creative resource, Woman at the Door demonstrates how a complex story can move from page to stage, and onwards to screen, without losing its nuance, ambiguity or emotional force.
About the Author
SID STEPHENSON is a former academic and international project manager with extensive experience working on overseas development and AID programmes in complex political and institutional environments. His professional background includes project design, programme management, institutional development and working with government and education sectors in multiple countries. He holds an MSc in International Project Management (Cambridge) and has since moved into writing fiction full-time. His published novels to date include Sinkhole and Nemesis, political thrillers exploring international power and corruption; Bunyip, a political thriller set in Australia; Langtry, a contemporary western set in southwest Texas; Zonobia, an exploration of human interaction with ‘super intelligence’, and, Woman at the Door, set in Austria at the end of WW2. Sid lives in North Wales with his partner, Sarah and two dogs, where he continues to write novels and screenplays. Sid is the inventor and founder of the writing genre ‘SCROVEL’, which targets readers who love film.