World War Ii Fiction

Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell and has garnered comparisons to celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene. Set during the tumult of World War II, on the lush Malayan island of Penang, The Gift of Rain tells a riveting and poignant tale about a young man caught in the tangle of wartime loyalties and deceits. In 1939, 16-year-old Philip Hutton - the half-Chinese, half-English youngest child of the head of one of Penang's great trading families - feels alienated from both the Chinese and British communities.

At Heim Hochland, a Nazi breeding home in Bavaria, three women’s fates are irrevocably intertwined. Gundi is a pregnant university student from Berlin. An Aryan beauty, she’s secretly a member of a resistance group. Hilde, only eighteen, is a true believer in the cause and is thrilled to carry a Nazi official’s child. And Irma, a forty-four-year-old nurse, is desperate to build a new life for herself after personal devastation. All three have everything to lose.

With the end of the Second World War in sight, the Allies begin to divide up the spoils and it proves to be a dangerous game. The British have become aware that, contrary to what's been agreed, the Soviet Union is intent on controlling Austria once the Second World War ends. And Major Edgar is given the job of establishing an espionage unit in Vienna. He sends in a married Swiss couple - Rolf Eder and Katharina Hoch - who, in fact, have only met each other a week before their journey. Their job is to track down Austria's most respected politician and bring him over to the British cause.

Celebrated singer Genevieve Dumont is both a star and a smokescreen. An unwilling darling of the Nazis, the chanteuse’s position of privilege allows her to go undetected as an ally to the resistance. When her estranged mother, Lillian de Rocheford, is captured by Nazis, Genevieve knows it won’t be long before the Gestapo succeeds in torturing information out of Lillian that will derail the upcoming allied invasion. The resistance movement is tasked with silencing her by any means necessary - including assassination.

Like most gentiles in Nazi-occupied Paris, architect Lucien Bernard has little empathy for the Jews. So when a wealthy industrialist offers him a large sum of money to devise secret hiding places for Jews, Lucien struggles with the choice of risking his life for a cause he doesn't really believe in. Ultimately he can't resist the challenge and begins designing expertly concealed hiding spaces - behind a painting, within a column, or inside a drainpipe - detecting possibilities invisible to the average eye. But when one of his clever hiding spaces fails and the immense suffering of Jews becomes incredibly personal, he can no longer deny reality.

Summer, 1940. Nineteen-year-old Jakob Novis and his quirky younger sister Lizzie share a love of riddles and puzzles. And now they’re living inside of one. The quarrelsome siblings find themselves amidst one of the greatest secrets of World War II—Britain’s eccentric codebreaking factory at Bletchley Park. As Jakob joins Bletchley’s top minds to crack the Nazi's Enigma cipher, fourteen-year-old Lizzie embarks on a mission to solve the mysterious disappearance of their mother.

On a golden August morning in 1939, sisters Antonina and Helena Dabrowska send their father off to defend Poland against the looming threat of German invasion. The next day, the first bombs fall on Warsaw, decimating their cherished city and shattering the world of their youth. When Antonina’s beloved Marek is forced behind ghetto walls along with the rest of Warsaw’s Jewish population, Antonina knows she cannot stand by and soon becomes a key figure in a daring network of women risking their lives to shelter Jewish children.

Europe, 1939. Hanne is an adolescent boy, born into a wealthy family from Belgrade. Realizing the Nazi threat is advancing toward the Balkans with giant strides, his parents are prepared to do anything to save their son’s life. The road to survival, however, is not easy. Just as Europe’s gates are about to shut down, Hanne and 1,100 other youths sail away on the Danube River. On board the ship, under appalling living conditions, Hanne falls in love with Inge, a young German Jewish girl.

G.W. Pabst, one of cinema’s greatest directors of the 20th century, was filming in France when the Nazis seized power. To escape the horrors of the new and unrecognizable Germany, he fled to Hollywood. But now, under the blinding California sun, the world-famous director suddenly looks like a nobody. Not even Greta Garbo, the Hollywood actress whom he made famous, can help him. When he receives word that his elderly mother is ill, he finds himself back in his homeland of Austria, which is now called Ostmark.

Summoned to relieve destroyers that are bogged down by escort duty in the escalating Pacific Theater, the Hayward is met with a rather cold reception. In the eyes of Pacific Fleet sailors, North Atlantic convoy duty pales in comparison to the bloody, carrier-sinking battles of Savo Island and Guadalcanal. However, Atlantic Fleet ships have had to specialize in one thing: anti-submarine warfare. The Hayward is sent off into remote South Pacific operating areas with orders to find and destroy Japanese submarines—but with little expectation of success.

London, November 1941. Following the departure of the formidable Henrietta Bird from Woman’s Friend magazine, things are looking up for Emmeline Lake as she takes on the new challenges as a wartime advice columnist. Her relationship with boyfriend Charles is blossoming, while Emmy’s best friend Bunty, still reeling from the very worst of the Blitz, is bravely looking to the future. Together, the friends are determined to Make a Go of It.

New York Times bestselling author Alan Furst is widely recognized as master of the historical spy novel. Furst’s works are vivid evocations of long-forgotten heroes and feature plots that unfold to the inexorable cadence of history. Night Soldiers is a simultaneously thrilling and illuminating tale of espionage set in 1934.

Franciszka and her daughter, Helena, are simple, ordinary people until 1939, when the Nazis invade their homeland. Providing shelter to Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland is a death sentence, but Franciszka and Helena do exactly that. In their tiny home in Sokal, they hide a Jewish family in a loft above their pigsty, a Jewish doctor with his wife and son in a makeshift cellar under the kitchen, and a defecting German soldier in the attic - each party completely unknown to the others.

En 1945, la guerre est terminée et Auschwitz est enfin libéré. À 16 ans, Tasha franchit les grilles du camp en route vers la liberté. Elle se retourne pour regarder une dernière fois ce lieu qui lui a volé son enfance en se demandant comment elle a pu survivre à cet enfer alors que tant d'autres n'y sont pas parvenus. Mais la joie d'être enfin libre est ternie par l'absence de sa mère. Quelques semaines plus tôt, elle lui a été arrachée des bras par un officier nazi... Où a-t-il emmené sa mère ? Est-elle encore en vie ?

As the Nazi regime crumbles, Hanni hides from her father on the fringes of Berlin. She develops the photographs she took to record the brutality of the camp - the empty food bowls and hungry eyes - and vows to get justice for the innocent people she couldn’t help. But, on the day she plans to deliver these damning photographs to the Allies, Hanni comes face to face with her father again. Reiner Foss is now working with the British forces, his past safely hidden behind a new identity. He will go to deadly lengths to protect his secrets, but Hanni knows she can’t give up her fight.

Allemagne, 1995. La paix semble enfin revenue au manoir de Dranitz. Franziska est heureuse d'avoir retrouvé les lieux de son enfance et son grand amour Walter. Malheureusement le rêve de Franziska est vite compromis : le restaurant récemment ouvert n'attire pas beaucoup de clients et les travaux sont brusquement arrêtés en raison d'une terrible découverte dans la cave.

Julia Esdaile is hired to restore the historic gardens at Havenworth Manor—the grounds of which are now an abandoned snarl of bramble and weeds—to their original splendor. For the enigmatic lady of the manor, ninety-two-year-old Margaret Clarke, the reason for the restoration is the deeply private story of a promise made a lifetime ago, and a vow to keep it before she dies.

Après le Long Hiver, Emma Matthews et James Sinclair espéraient pouvoir recommencer une existence presque normale dans le Camp Sept. Mais lorsque la NASA découvre que plusieurs astéroïdes ont quitté la ceinture de Kuiper pour filer droit vers la Terre, il faut reprendre les armes. Avec son équipe, James se prépare à livrer bataille au sol et dans l'espace. Tandis que la guerre éclate, Emma et James luttent pied à pied pour préserver ceux qu'ils aiment. Dans les ténèbres glacées qui s'abattent, de nouvelles alliances se forgent et le duo doit affronter sans cesse des dangers imprévisibles.

Entre amours perdues et secrets de famille, de la Seconde Guerre mondiale aux années 1990, Anne Jacobs nous entraîne dans sa nouvelle trilogie phénomène au cœur des tourmentes du XXe siècle, dans une nouvelle saga époustouflante digne de La Villa aux étoffes. Franziska von Dranitz ne peut le croire : elle est enfin de retour chez elle, au Manoir de Dranitz. Dans la tourmente de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, elle et sa mère ont été chassées du domaine familial situé à l'Est de l'Allemagne.

From the author of The Power of One comes a new novel about Africa. The time is 1939. White South Africa is a deeply divided nation with many of the Afrikaner people fanatically opposed to the English. The world is also on the brink of war, and South Africa elects to fight for the Allied cause against Germany. Six-year-old Tom Fitzsaxby finds himself in The Boys Farm, an orphanage in a remote town in the high mountains, where the Afrikaners side fiercely with Hitler's Germany.