A highly acclaimed anti-fascist novel, The Mortal Storm was Phyllis Bottome's dramatic warning against the warmongering, antisemitism, and misogyny of the Nazis. The story pits the developing political and feminist consciousness of Freya Roth against the Nazi machine that will destroy the fabric of her family and nation. In its combination of adventure and love story, political analysis and history, The Mortal Storm remains a powerful reminder of the greatest crisis of the twentieth century, as well as a riveting personal saga.

Phyllis Forbes Dennis (31 May 1884 – 22 August 1963) was a British novelist and short story writer who wrote under her birth name, Phyllis Bottome ( /bəˈtoʊm/ bə-TOHM). She was born in Rochester, Kent to an American clergyman, Rev. William MacDonald Bottome and Mary (Leatham) Bottome. In 1917, in Paris, she married Alban Ernan Forbes Dennis, a British diplomat working firstly in Marseilles and then in Vienna as Passport Control Officer, a cover for his real role as MI6 Head of Station with responsibility for Austria, Hungary and Yugoslavia. Her marriage to Forbes Dennis was to be a long and triumphant partnership. Forbes Dennis died in July 1972 in Brighton. Bottome studied Individual psychology under Alfred Adler while in Vienna. This would become useful in her work both as a teacher and a writer. In 1924 she and her husband started a school in Kitzbühel in Austria.