Historical Fiction World Literature

1997. Amy Novak has lost the two great loves in her life: her husband, Michael, and her first love, music. With the first anniversary of Michael's death approaching, Amy buries herself in her job as an archivist. And when a newly declassified file lands on her desk, she is astonished to uncover proof that Agent 'Colette' existed—a name spoken only in whispers; an identity so secret that it has never been verified.

Seemingly overnight, the German blitzkrieg of Warsaw in 1939 turns its streets to a war zone and shatters the life of each citizen - Polish, Jewish, or otherwise. Sophie Kumiega, a British bride working in the city's library, awaits news of her husband, Janek, recently deployed with the Polish Air Force. Though Sophie is determined that she and the baby in her womb will stay safe, the days ahead will draw her into the plight of those around her, compelling her to help, whatever the danger.

1940: In south-west Ireland, the young and beautiful Lady Charlotte Rathmore is pronounced dead after she disappears by the lake of Blackwater Hall. In London, on the brink of the Blitz, Nancy Rathmore is grieving Charlotte's death when a letter arrives containing a secret that she is sworn to keep. 2019: Ellie Fitzgerald is forced to leave Dublin disgraced and heartbroken. Abandoning journalism, she returns to rural Kerry to weather out the storm. But, when she discovers a faded letter, tucked inside the pages of an old book, she finds herself drawn in by a long-buried secret.

Abigail, the story of a headstrong teenager growing up during World War II, is the most beloved of Magda Szabo's books in her native Hungary. Gina is the only child of a general, a widower who has long been happy to spoil his bright and willful daughter. Gina is devastated when the general tells her that he must go away on a mission and that he will be sending her to boarding school in the country. She is even more aghast at the grim religious institution to which she soon finds herself consigned.

Nanzeen's inauspicious birth in a Bangladeshi village imbues in her a sense of fatalism that she carries across continents. Married off to a man old enough to be her father, Nanzeen moves to London and cares for her family. But gradually she begins to question whether fate controls her or whether she has a hand in her own destiny. She discovers both the complexity that comes with free choice and the depth of her attachment to her husband, her daughters and her new world.

Told in the voice of a young soldier, the story follows 24 hours in his life at the front during World War I, and captures his memories as he looks back over his life. Full of stunningly researched detail and engrossing atmosphere, the book leads to a dramatic and moving conclusion.

Trained as a nurse and midwife, Elizabeth Evans never wanted to help set up the fledgling town of Aspen Coulee, Alberta, but travels there with her father when he agrees to become the town doctor. Housekeeper at the Evans house, Ann Montgomery hoped to keep all her San Francisco secrets locked in her ancient wedding chest. It is 1907, and the Canadian Pacific Railway is driving the engine of the west.

Bombay was the city everyone came to in the early decades of the 19th century: among them, the Goans and the Mangaloreans, looking for safe harbour, livelihood, and a new place to call home. Communities congregated around churches and markets, sharing lord and land with the native East Indians. The young among them were nudged on to the path of marriage, procreation and godliness, though noble intentions were often ambushed by errant love and plain and simple lust. As in the story of Annette and Benji (and Joe) or Michael and Merlyn (and Ellena).

As the Nazis march toward Paris in 1940, American ballerina Lucie Girard buys her favorite English-language bookstore to allow the Jewish owners to escape. Lucie struggles to run Green Leaf Books due to oppressive German laws and harsh conditions, but she finds a way to aid the resistance by passing secret messages between the pages of her books.

Auschwitz, 1942: Her entire body trembles as she stands in the infirmary and realises the horrifying truth. She’s a nurse, but instead of saving her fellow inmates, she’s about to be ordered to kill them… Surrounded by thick fog from the nearby forest, Orli stumbles from the cattle truck onto the frostbitten grounds of Auschwitz. Betrayed by her own husband for being a German resistance fighter, she has no one left in the world, and this is now her home.

"Apeirogon", n.m. : figure géométrique au nombre infini de côtés. Rami Elhanan est israélien, fils d'un rescapé de la Shoah, ancien soldat de la guerre du Kippour ; Bassam Aramin est palestinien, et n'a connu que la dépossession, la prison et les humiliations. Tous deux ont perdu une fille. Abir avait dix ans, Smadar, treize ans.

Set in the northern Italian town of Ferrara before, during, and after the Second World War, these interlocking stories present a fully rounded world of unforgettable characters. The Novel of Ferrara memorializes not only the Ferrarese people, but the city itself, which assumes a character and a voice deeply inflected by the Jewish community to which the narrator belongs.

All is not well at Castle's Café. Since the fatal shooting, customers have been staying away, and now Nellie finds herself in debt to the sinister Terence Carter. But when a deadly attack strikes close to home, these troubles pale into insignificance. Meanwhile, Jimmy Castle's relationship with family friend Reenie Turner has deepened, and in the aftermath of the attack that could so easily have killed them, they decide to get married. But the return of an old friend threatens to expose a long-held secret, leaving the wedding teetering on the brink of disaster.

1939: Nerys Watkins leaves rural Wales to accompany her husband on a missionary posting to India. Travelling from lonely Ladakh, high in the Himalayas, Nerys discovers a new world in the city of Srinagar. Here, in the exquisite heart of Kashmir, the British live on carved wooden houseboats and dance, flirt and gossip as if there is no war. But the battles draw ever closer.

Carrie Cromwellcomes of age as the dark clouds of the Civil War swallow the country. Born with a fiery spirit and a strong mind, she finds herself struggling between the common wisdom of the South and the truth she has discovered.

Purple. The foundation of an influential trade in a Roman world dominated by men. One woman rises up to take the reins of success in an incredible journey of courage, grit, and friendship. And along the way, she changes the world. But before she was Lydia, the seller of purple, she was simply a merchant's daughter who loved three things: her father, her ancestral home, and making dye. Then unbearable betrayal robs her of nearly everything.

Germany, 1941: “We live together, or we die together.” A novel that will stay with you forever, The Girl Who Survived tells the inspiring true story of Ilse Stein, a German Jew who was imprisoned in a ghetto - and who fell in love with the man she was supposed to loathe.

Germany, 1944. Taken from the camps to serve the Führer himself, Anke Hoff is assigned as midwife to one of Hitler’s inner circle. If she refuses, her family will die. Torn between her duty as a caregiver and her hatred for the Nazi regime, Anke is swept into a life unlike anything she’s ever known - and she discovers that many of those at the Berghof are just as trapped as she is. And soon, she’s falling for a man who will make her world more complicated still.

It is A.D. 1486. Fresh from his treacherous turning of the tides against Richard III in the Battle of Bosworth, Sir Gaston de Russe's reputation is dark and dirty. Those loyal to Richard hate him and those loyal to Henry Tudor fear him. He is, after all, The Dark One. In order to gain a strong foothold in Yorkshire, Henry sends Gaston to one of the largest fortresses in the north, a massive bastion called Mt. Holyoak Castle.

In 1946, Eva leaves behind the rubble of Berlin for the streets of New York City, stepping from the fiery aftermath of one war into another, far colder one, where power is more important than principles and lies are more plentiful than the truth. Eva holds the key to a deadly secret: Project Bluebird - a horrific experiment of the concentration camps, capable of tipping the balance of world power. Both the Americans and the Soviets want Bluebird, and it is something that neither should ever be allowed to possess.