World War Ii Fiction

Sisters Alice and Jenny are in their early 20s when the Germans occupy their home of Jersey. Alice, a nurse, is called to work in the German hospital, unaware that she will find a great love but that she will make an even greater sacrifice and be sent to a place across the seas where she will witness unbearable suffering. Meanwhile her sister, Jenny, is drawn into a circle of islanders who decide to rise up and resist the occupiers. For both sisters, the war will cause them to make extraordinary choices, experience unimaginable heartbreak and emerge forever changed....

Liverpool, 1935: Raised in a strict Catholic family, Viv Byrne knows what’s expected of her: marry a Catholic man from her working-class neighborhood and have his children. However, when she finds herself pregnant after a fling with Joshua Levinson, a Jewish man with dreams of becoming a famous jazz musician, Viv knows that a swift wedding is the only answer. Her only solace is that marrying Joshua will mean escaping her strict mother’s scrutiny. But when Joshua makes a life-changing choice on their wedding day, Viv is forced once again into the arms of her disapproving family.

Florence, South Carolina 1944: Lieutenant Raymond Sellers bids farewell to his brother Jimmie, the weight of what lies ahead hanging heavy in the air. The brothers have always been inseparable—Raymond, the steady protector, Jimmie, the wild-hearted dreamer. But as Raymond embraces his pregnant wife Evelyn one last time, war is about to test the bonds of family in ways they never imagined. As a summer storm shakes the windows, Evelyn brings her baby into a world at war.

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.

Czechoslovakia, 1935: Viktor Kosárek, a newly trained psychiatrist who studied under Carl Jung, arrives at the infamous Hrad Orlu Asylum for the Criminally Insane. The facility is located in a medieval mountaintop castle surrounded by forests, on a site that is well known for concealing dark secrets going back many centuries. The asylum houses six inmates - the country's most treacherous killers - known to the terrified public as the Devil's Six. Viktor intends to use a new medical technique to prove that these patients share a common archetype of evil, a phenomenon he calls The Devil Aspect.

Munich, 1935. The Bavarian capital is a magnet for young aristocratic Britons who come to learn German, swim in the lakes and drink beer in the cellars. What they don't see—or choose to ignore—is the brutal underbelly of the Nazi movement, which considers Munich its spiritual home. When a high-born English girl is murdered, Detective Sebastian Wolff is ordered to solve the crime. Wolff is already walking a tight line between doing his job and falling foul of the political party he abhors. Now Hitler is taking a personal interest in the case.

Caroline Payne thinks it’s just another day of work until she receives a call from Mat Hammond, an old college friend and historian. But pleasantries are cut short. Mat has uncovered a scandalous secret kept buried for decades: In World War II, Caroline’s British great-aunt betrayed family and country to marry her German lover. Determined to find answers and save her family’s reputation, Caroline flies to her family’s ancestral home in London.

The only way Cilla van der Zee can survive the German occupation of the Netherlands is to do the unthinkable—become a spy for the Nazis in Britain. She soothes her conscience with a plan to abandon her mission and instead aid the Allies. Her scheme is thwarted when naval officer Lt. Lachlan Mackenzie finds her along the Scottish shore and turns her in to be executed. But perhaps she is more useful alive than dead.

The Blitz is in full force. Bombs rip relentlessly through London, destroying buildings, and rattling confidence. As Britain falls further into chaos, the Littlefields - ever-dedicated - must keep fighting. Jeremy prepares to fly a mission without his trusted Eagles. Still held as a POW at a high-security facility, Lance grows more, and more desperate to make an escape. And thousands of miles apart, Claire and Paul - both armed with top-secret war intelligence - experience a similar struggle: They know more than they can say. And that knowledge places their siblings in grave danger.

Cleo Jaffray was an American. A war in Europe had nothing to do with her. She told herself that right up until the man she loved went missing in Poland and Cleo was forced to turn to the only person who might be able to help—her aunt Daisy, the US Minister to Norway. Daisy Harriman has never shied away from a challenge, be it canvassing for women’s suffrage or driving Red Cross ambulances in WWI, so as only the second woman ambassador, she is determined to prove the naysayers wrong and succeed in her post.

Working in a museum under a false identity is Brigitte’s only hope. Until she meets Isabelle Valette, who confides in hushed tones that she is part of the Resistance. And when her new friend tells her of a train leaving Paris that can take children to safety, Brigitte knows her daughter must be on it, even if it breaks her heart. But getting Sophie onto the train is dangerous. If they are caught smuggling a Jewish child out of Paris, they will be killed. And with the enemy closing in, can Brigitte get her beloved daughter to safety before it is too late?

Sweetbitter meets The Nightingale in this pause-resisting novel about a woman who returns to her family’s ancestral vineyard in Burgundy and unexpectedly uncovers a lost diary, an unknown relative, and a secret her family has been keeping since World War II. To become one of only a few hundred certified wine experts in the world, Kate must pass the notoriously difficult Master of Wine examination. She’s failed twice before; her third attempt will be her last chance.

Dachau, 1942. Emilie has been told she's here to nurse evil men. But the first patient she sees in the cold, dark room is hauntingly familiar. Her first love is not wicked. He couldn't be. What is he doing here? Emilie's heart stops as she takes in her childhood sweetheart hunched in a tattered prisoners uniform, the light lost from his face. Her new husband, Otto, said this was a camp for criminals. He should know, he's the doctor. But Danner would never have broken the law.

Germany, 1943. Jordanna cries out desperately to her mother, tears spilling down her cheeks. She is being torn one way, her parents another. And in Jordanna’s terrified, wide brown eyes, there is only one question: Will I ever see you again?

Scott Bradley James arrives in Annapolis, Maryland, as a plebe in the class of 1941 without a terribly good idea why he wants to be a naval officer, other than that his father was a sailor, and he wants to see the world, whatever that means. Scott and his roommate become fast friends, and, after surviving scrapes of their own making, the two fetch up at Pearl Harbor. War is brewing, and their class has graduated early. They have been sent to battle stations.

Still struggling with personal loss and haunted by the memories of her near-death experience at the hands of the Nazis, dazzling singer Hattie James desires to leave her past behind and focus on reviving her career and rising in the ranks of the glamorous Brazilian music scene. But when she discovers that her mother’s new suitor, Swiss diplomat Frederick Ziegler, is associated with SS leader Heinz Baumann, Hattie’s suspicions ignite..

Holland, 1944: Undercover British agent Nancy Callaghan has been given her toughest case yet. A key member of the Dutch resistance has been captured, and Nancy must play the role of a wealthy Nazi to win over a notorious SS officer, Detlef Keller, and gain crucial information. But as Nancy infiltrates the Dutch SS, she finds herself catching the eye of an even more senior member of the Party. Is Nancy in too deep, or can Tom reach her before she gets caught?

The Karangalan family and their neighbors huddle for survival in the cellar of a house a few miles from Manila. Outside the safety of their little refuge the war rages on—fiery bombs torch the beautiful Filipino countryside, Japanese soldiers round up and interrogate innocent people, and from the hills guerillas wage a desperate campaign against the enemy. Inside the cellar, these men, women, and children put their hopes and dreams on hold as they wait out the war, only emerging to look for food, water, and medicine.

Yorkshire, 1943. Lily Baines, a bright young debutante increasingly ground down by an endless war, has traded in her white gloves for a set of headphones. It’s her job to intercept enemy naval communications and send them to Bletchley Park for decryption. One night, she picks up a transmission that isn’t code at all—it’s a cry for help.

Twenty-five years after the end of the war, Noah Ainsworth is still preoccupied with those perilous, exhilarating years as a British SOE operative in France. A head injury sustained on his final operation has caused frustrating gaps in his memory—in particular about the agent who saved his life during that mission gone wrong, whose real name he never knew, nor whether she even survived the war.