Fiction Women World War

Devon, 1940: When 15-year-old Daisy is evacuated from her home in London, she knows she must look after her younger sister, Peggy. She is the only one who can reassure Peggy that life will go back to normal, reading to her from their one battered children’s book, ensuring she takes the cough medicine their mother tucked in the pocket of her gas mask bag.

In 1917, after Arlene Favier’s home burns to the ground, taking her father with it, she must find a way to support her mother and younger brother. If she doesn’t succeed, they will all be impoverished. Job opportunities are scarce, but then a daring possibility arises: the American Women’s Hospital needs ambulance drivers to join a trailblazing, all-female team of doctors and nurses bound for war-torn France.

Orkney, 1940. Five hundred Italian prisoners-of-war arrive to fortify these remote and windswept islands. Resentful islanders are fearful of the enemy in their midst, but not orphaned twin sisters Dorothy and Constance. Already outcasts, they volunteer to nurse all prisoners who are injured or fall sick. Soon Dorothy befriends Cesare, an artist swept up by the machine of war and almost broken by the horrors he has witnessed. She is entranced by his plan to build an Italian chapel from war scrap and sea debris, and something beautiful begins to blossom.

War rages, but the women and children of Liverpool’s Dr Barnardo’s Home cannot give up hope.... Liverpool, 1943. Yorkshire is the place Lana has always called home, but it’s now filled with painful memories of her fiancé, Dickie, who was killed at sea. When she accepts the challenging position of headmistress at a school in Liverpool, she hopes a new beginning will help to mend her broken heart.

When Hazel is given the chance to parachute into Nazi-occupied France, she seizes the opportunity to do more for the British war effort than file paperwork. Alongside her childhood friend, French-born Rose, she quickly rises up the ranks of the freedom fighters. For Rose, the Resistance is a link to her late husband, and a way to move forward without him. What starts out as helping downed airmen becomes a bigger cause when they meet Sophia, a German escapee and fierce critic of Hitler who is wanted by the Gestapo.

Berlin 1932: With the country in chaos, Monika Varády, a young Bavarian actress, arrives in Germany's capital with high hopes—to one day, just maybe, be a great star of the stage and screen.

In 1939, Hitler's tyranny approaches western Poland. A prosperous Jewish family - Julius and Josefina Kohn and their two teenage children Peter and Suzanna - flee their homeland, embarking on an unexpected odyssey of 6,000 arduous miles. They evade Nazi capture, only to be arrested by the Soviets, who have invaded Poland from the east. Deported to northern Russia, they endure savage conditions during 18 months of forced labor in a prison camp, where death lurks around every corner.

In 1940s Italy, Ottie’s life is defined by family loyalty and the demands of her domineering father. Sent to work in a British munitions factory near Positano, she finds herself drawn to Hal, a soldier grappling with the horrors of war. As their forbidden love grows, Ottie is forced to confront the expectations of her family and the brutal realities of a country at war.

Mala, matricule 19880, comprend qu'elle vient d'arriver en enfer au moment où elle descend du wagon à bestiaux à Auschwitz. Edward, matricule 531, est un ancien combattant du camp et un prisonnier politique. Quand ils se rencontrent, l'ombre sombre d'Auschwitz est illuminée par une lueur d'espoir. Une promesse est faite – ils s'enfuiront ensemble ou ils mourront ensemble.

Constance Sparks always says yes…when her capricious best friend needs money; when her boss gives her more responsibility without a raise; and when her boyfriend, Hayden, who is very kind but also secretive, asks her to marry him. While planning their wedding—and struggling with anxiety about the right course for her future—Constance researches the history of her antique engagement ring and unearths the name of a man who might be connected to it, plus his tragic love story.

Berlin, 1938. Samuel Weiss and Max von Hofmannsthal were best friends until the cruel antisemitism of Nazi Germany seeped into Berlin and tore their friendship apart. As Max rises in the ranks of the Nazi SS, Sam and his Jewish family find themselves simply struggling to survive.

May 30, 1944. In the middle of the night, Libby Clark is roused from sleep by a colleague in distress. Marvin’s cousin Frannie has been charged with treason, and he hopes that Libby, with her clearheaded scientific mind, can find a way to help prove her innocence. Libby, a chemist at a secret World War II facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, agrees to help her friend and pursue the truth. Libby’s investigations soon uncover the immoral Dr. Hansrote, who has tricked Frannie into her treachery. But the evil at Oak Ridge seems to run deeper....

Vittoria is a noble Jewish woman living in northern Italy. With the onset of World War II, her life changes completely. When the Nazis arrive in the quiet town, the entire family is forced to flee and cross the border to Switzerland using fake identities. But not everything goes according the plan. One of her children is not allowed to cross the border with the rest of the family and must be left behind. Now, Vittoria must make a critical decision that could scar her and the family forever.

Set in 1949 Paris, Slim Moran runs the Pitchipoi Agency with her Nazi Hunter boyfriend, Daniel. Their specialty: to find those lost in the last war. After a couple of easy cases, business has ground to halt, and Daniel has just gone on another manhunt this time to find the Nazi Butcher of Lyon, Klaus Barbie. Slim is bored until a British spymistress asks her to find a missing woman spy long presumed dead.

In 1930s Sardinia, Allegra and her daughters maintain the tradition of the water women. As it was for the generations of Jewish mothers and daughters before her, weaving the fine threads of mollusks into golden cloth and tapestry is an honor, a duty, and a precious gift to an outside world that seems bent on turmoil. By 1942, a threat comes to their sleepy fishing village. Germany has pressed its boot on Italy. Allegra’s daughter Zaneta notices boats she’s never seen before anchored off the shore.

Opal has always dreamed of leaving her small island home in Malta to study ballet in France. However, upon arriving with her cousin Celine and best friend Lulu, she quickly realizes that nothing is as expected. Opal is forced to mature rapidly in order to protect herself and her companions from exploitation and the looming threat of war. A fateful injury lands her in the care of Andrei, a young Russian doctor with whom she develops a profound bond. As the consequences of her choices begin to unfold, Opal faces the most difficult decision of her life—one that will shape her future forever.

December 1941. War has erupted in the Pacific, spelling danger for Gina Capelli Thorpe, an American expat living in Manila. When the Japanese invade and her husband goes missing, Gina flees with her daughter to the Zambales Mountains to avoid capture - or worse. Desperate for money, medicine, and guns, the resistance recruits Gina to join their underground army and smuggles her back to Manila.

1939, London: From McPhail's Passage to Kensington's Grand Palace Hotel, Rose Dunbar is evacuated from her humble home on the Rock of Gibraltar and dropped into a chaotic city of falling bombs, perplexing class rules and bad weather. Despite being 'flagrantly foreign' to the locals, she becomes an efficient go-between for the upper-class ladies helping out with the war effort and her own tribe of noisy displaced families.

September 1939: The conquering Nazis swarm through Warsaw as social worker Irena Sendler watches in dread from her apartment window. Already, the city's poor go hungry. Irena wonders how she will continue to deliver food and supplies to those who need it most, including the forbidden Jews. The answer comes unexpectedly.

From the bestselling author of Haven Point comes a sweeping historical novel about the generations of a family that spends summers in a seaside enclave on the rocky Maine coastline, for fans of Elin Hilderbrand, Beatriz Williams, and Sarah Blake. 1900: 28-year-old Anna Bradley spends summer days...