Literary Fiction War

England 1922. It’s been four years since Rudy’s brother Edgar went missing in war-torn France. Still deep in mourning and grappling with unanswered questions, Rudy and his mother struggle to move on. When the enigmatic Mariette arrives unexpectedly at the family’s manor claiming to be Edgar’s widow, and the mother of his child, Rudy urges her to stay, hoping she’ll shed light on the missing pieces.

On the windswept shores of an East German island, Bettina Heilstrom struggles to build a life from the ashes. World War II has ended, and her country is torn apart. Longing for a family, she marries Werner, an older bureaucrat who adores her. But after joining the fledgling secret police, he is drawn deep into its dark mission and becomes a dangerous man.

It’s 1943. Enman and Una Greene are newly married. Each is haunted by their respective pasts, and each harbours secrets. They have hopes of a happy life together - though they have little idea how to create such a life. Enman brings Una to his childhood home in rural Barrein, Nova Scotia, where he hopes they will stay. Una is restless and feeling increasingly trapped and longs for the city life she once had. Una meets a mysterious man, and then a body washes up on a beach. There are rumours of German sailors roaming the dunes.

Italy, 1943. Luca Benedetto has joined the partisans in their fight against the German troops ravaging the shores of his town on Lake Como. While risking his life to free his country, Luca is also struggling to protect Sarah, his Jewish lover who’s hiding in a mountain cabin. As the violent Nazi occupation intensifies, Luca and Sarah fear for more than their own lives.

Berlin, 1989. As the wall between East and West falls, Miriam Winter cares for her dying father, Henryk. When he cries out for someone named Frieda - and Miriam discovers an Auschwitz tattoo hidden under his watch strap - Henryk’s secret history begins to unravel. Searching for more clues of her father’s past, Miriam finds an inmate uniform from the Ravensbrück women’s camp concealed among her mother’s things. Within its seams are dozens of letters to Henryk written by Frieda.

De 1930 à 1940, la famille Rochefort, disséminée dans le monde, vit les grands soubresauts d'une époque en ébullition. Aux premiers grondements de la guerre, c'est à Anduze, fief cévenol du clan, que tous se retrouveront. Autour d'un mystérieux personnage recouvrant la mémoire... De 1930 à 1940, vies et destins croisés des héritiers Rochefort. A Nîmes, Jean-Christophe, devenu le patriarche de la lignée, est parvenu à redonner un élan salutaire à l'entreprise de textile familiale.

Gemma Harper est une jeune New-Yorkaise ambitieuse dont les certitudes vacillent à la mort de sa mère. C'est au cœur d'une Normandie inconnue que ses pas vont la guider à la découverte de ses origines cachées, liées à celles de Philippine, femme au destin romanesque durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. 2000, Gemma est une jeune New-Yorkaise vive, séduisante, pragmatique, travaillant avec passion dans l'entreprise familiale de produits alimentaires. À la mort de sa mère, elle découvre que sa "vraie" grand-mère était française ; elle décide alors de partir, seule, sur ses traces.

Ukraine, 1923. On a small farm, two boys are born within days of each other, both Ukrainian, one Jewish. Mykhail and Asher grow up inseparable, together finding friendship, adventure and escape from the harshness of Russian rule. But after Asher’s family flees to Warsaw, their worlds are torn to shreds by the Second World War. The war brings cruelty to both boys. Although Asher finds love in Warsaw, the city is far from the haven his family sought; meanwhile Mykhail becomes a victim of the bitter struggle for Ukraine. But worse follows, in the shape of the Treblinka death camp.

At the close of World War II, London is in ruins and Rose Daniel isn’t at peace. Eight years ago, her brother disappeared while fighting alongside Gypsy partisans in Spain. From his letters, Rose has just two clues to his whereabouts - his descriptions of the spectacular south slopes of the Sierra Nevada and his love for a woman who was carrying his child. In Spain, it has been eight years since Lola Aragon’s family was massacred. Eight years since she rescued a newborn girl from the arms of her dying mother and ran for her life.

Written in first person, this mono-myth story transcends military fiction and enters the realm of contemporary and coming-of-age stories. The author puts us in the boots of a teenage American male as he joins the military seeking adventure and a wake-up call. He wakes up more than he ever imagined, albeit 20 years later.

In 1942, Kay Summersby's life is changed forever when she is conscripted to drive General Eisenhower on his fact-finding visit to wartime London. Despite Eisenhower's marriage to Mamie, the pair takes an immediate liking to each other, and he buys Kay a rare wartime luxury: a box of chocolates. So begins a tumultuous relationship that, against all military regulation, sees Kay traveling with Eisenhower on missions to far-flung places before the final assault on Nazi Germany.

In a sleepy English village in 1944, Annabel and her son, Daniel, live in the shadow of war. With her husband away, Annabel withdraws ever deeper into long-ago memories of happier times. When mother and son befriend Hans, a German PoW consigned to a nearby farm, their lives are suddenly filled with thrilling secrets. But Hans has plans of his own and will soon set them into motion, with chilling consequences.

Der neue große Roman von Uwe Timm: Deutschland im April 1945: Michael Hansen, mit seiner Familie als Kind von Hamburg in die USA ausgewandert, kehrt als GI zurück und übernimmt einen Auftrag des Geheimdienstes. Er soll herausfinden, welche Rolle der Eugeniker Alfred Ploetz für das Naziregime spielte. Während andernorts noch der Endkampf tobt, bricht Hansen von Frankfurt nach Bayern auf und bezieht Quartier am Ammersee.

Ten years after the fall of Babylon, Cyrus's army is on the march again. His slave Croesus, no longer a young man, accompanies him as always, as does the king's son and heir Cambyses, who has inherited none of his father's diplomacy or charisma and all of his vanity and violence. When the warriors of Persia are unexpectedly crushed in battle Cyrus is put to death, and Cambyses assumes the throne.

She is a painter. He is a poet. Their art bridges time.

It is 1978. Merle is in her first year at the Corcoran School of Art, catapulted from her impoverished Appalachian upbringing into a sophisticated, dissipated art scene. It is also 1870. The teenage poet Arthur Rimbaud is on the verge of breaking through to the images and voice that will make his name. The meshed power of words and art thins the boundaries between the present and the past—and allows these two troubled, brilliant artists to enter each other’s worlds.

La Grande Guerre est finie depuis sept ans quand Maurice Poudevigne, que tout le monde croyait mort, revient "au pays". En suivant pas à pas l'itinéraire de cet ouvrier agricole de son enfance à sa mort, Jean Anglade nous offre un bel hymne à la vie et à la culture paysanne du début du siècle dernier. Fataliste, Maurice Poudevigne ? Il aime les joies simples, vivre entre les siens, monter, chaque été, sur le plateau du Cézallier, faucher les foins comme son père puis son frère aîné l'ont fait avant lui, au point d'être jugé le meilleur du canton.

Enter a timeless 24 hours of intimate dialogue of mind and heart, in which Lucretia experiences an epic train ride across America on the legendary train, the Chief. It is a journey which culminates in a painful and disturbing homecoming, darkened by human passions, unleashed by the lawlessness of war and the disorder of the era following it. These forces reveal themselves through the thoughts of Lucretia and those connected with her on this journey and beyond.

Norway, 1940. Nazis pour into Oslo, a shroud of dread looms over the city, and eighteen-year-old Ingrid Solberg fears the worst. Under German rule, harsh rationing and the exorbitant cost of medicine threaten the lives of many, including Ingrid’s mother. And when Ingrid meets a young SS officer, she’s forced to make a desperate choice. Seventy years later, after the death of Ingrid in her adopted country of Canada, her son, Arnold, finds a disturbing letter in her belongings. He embarks on a journey to Oslo to understand his family’s history....

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.

Inspired by the stories told by her father about his German childhood and letters between her grandparents that were hidden in an attic wall for 50 years, Motherland is a novel that attempts to reckon with the paradox of the author's father - a product of her grandparents' fiercely protective love - and their status as passive Nazi-sympathizers known as Mitläufer.