Fiction Women World War

American Amelia Montague defied her family five years ago to marry the man she loved, but that decision cost her everything. Disowned by her family, and left a penniless widow after her husband’s death, Amelia becomes her cousin Wallis Simpson’s private secretary in France. With no other prospects available, Amelia has no choice but to succeed, and under their Aunt Bessie’s direction, hopes to have a positive influence on Wallis and the Duke of Windsor. During the next two years, Amelia realizes that not everything with the Windsors is glittering happiness.

The most ambitious of three sisters, Lorraine ‘Raine’ Linfoot always dreamed of becoming a pilot. As a spirited 17-year-old, she persuades her hero Doug Williams to teach her to fly. When war breaks out in 1939, Raine is determined to put her skills to good use. She enlists in the Air Transport Auxiliary, becoming one of a handful of brave female pilots flying fighter planes to the men on the front line.

In the small French town of Colmar, swastikas hang from lampposts, tanks are lined up outside the town hall, and 21-year-old Marie-Claire is in love. She will do anything for her childhood friend Jacques, including spying on her German boss, Dietrich Kurtz. Anything to make Jacques see her in a new light, as something more than just a silly little girl. But when Jacques rejects her, everything changes. Mortified and stung, Marie-Claire feels the need for revenge. She turns her back on those she loves and is catapulted into a new life.

Loch Ewe, 1940. When gamekeeper's daughter Flora's remote highland village finds itself the base for the Royal Navy's Arctic convoys, life in her close-knit community changes forever. In defiance of his disapproving father, the laird's son falls in love with Flora, and as tensions build in their disrupted home, any chance of their happiness seems doomed.

Lillian Kaufman hasn't heard from her twin sister since Eleanor left for a mysterious job at an Army base somewhere in Tennessee. When she learns, on an unexpected phone call, that Eleanor is missing, Lillian takes a train from New York down to Oak Ridge to clear up the matter. It turns out that the only way into Oak Ridge is to assume Eleanor's identity, which Lillian plans to do swiftly and perfectly. But Eleanor has vanished without a trace—and she's not the only one.

Annie Fox will stop at nothing to serve her country. But what happens when her country fails her? In November 1941, Annie Fox, an Army nurse, is transferred to Hickam Field, an air force base in Honolulu. The others on her transport plane are thrilled to work in paradise, but Annie sees her new duty station as the Army's way of holding the door open to her retirement. But serving her country is her calling and she will go wherever she is told.

Angelina Green never knew her mother, who left her in a cardboard box by the East London docks on a freezing November night when she was a tiny baby. Saved by a local orphanage, she knows she owes her life to the kindness of others. And she’s determined to repay her debt by working as a nurse. Strong, kind and patient, Angelina is a natural on the ward. But when war breaks out in 1914 and she is sent to The Front, her courage is tested like never before....

Hero. Soldier. Spy. Leader. Her name is Nancy Wake. A riveting, richly imagined historical thriller, Liberation brings to life one of World War II's most fascinating unsung heroines in all her fierce power and complexity. This is the story of one of the one of the war's most decorated women, told like never before.

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.

Occupied France, 1940. When the staff at a field hospital draw straws to find out who will join the evacuation from Dunkirk, Nurse Cate is left behind. But when the Nazis arrive to claim prisoners of war, she takes her chance and flees into the night, taking one patient with her. Fifty miles away, the surrendering soldiers of the Royal Norfolk Regiment are shot dead by the advancing Germans. Beneath the pile of bodies two men survive, crawling to the safety of a nearby farmhouse, where sisters Elise and Adelaide risk their lives to take them in.

When Maggie McTigg's brother Michael went off to fight in World War II, he left his taxicab company in her hands. As the only member of the family with a lick of business sense, he asked her to keep it running while he was gone. Maggie took it as a sacred trust, her own contribution to the war efforts, and resolved that it would still be operating when the conflict was over and he finally returned home—no matter what it took and what she had to do. Just how far will a woman go to keep her soldier brother's heritage alive for him until a war is over?

1939. Viola Baxter and Fred Scholtz planned to start their new lives together. But Fred is half German and, with war fast approaching, he must travel to Germany to bring his sister home. But that journey is enough for others to suspect him...and Viola. When Annie Scholz heard her beloved grandmother was seriously ill, she wasted no time rushing to Germany to be by her side. She didn't realise it meant she would not be able to return home to the UK.

Anna Cavanaugh is a restless young widow and brilliant French teacher at an all-girls school in Washington, DC. Everything changes when she’s recruited into the Office of Strategic Services by family friend and legendary WWI hero Major General William Donovan. Donovan has faith in her - and in all his “glorious amateurs” who are becoming Anna’s fast friends: Maggie, Anna’s down-to-earth mentor; Irene, who’s struggling to find support from her husband for her clandestine life; and Julia, a cheerful OSS liaison.

Selina Lennox is a Bright Young Thing. Her life is a whirl of parties and drinking, pursued by the press and staying on just the right side of scandal, all while running from the life her parents would choose for her. Lawrence Weston is a penniless painter who stumbles into Selina's orbit one night and can never let her go even while knowing someone of her stature could never end up with someone of his. Except Selina falls hard for Lawrence, envisioning a life of true happiness. But when tragedy strikes, Selina finds herself choosing what's safe over what's right.

Every summer Bea, Marissa and Emma meet at Seastone, Emma's family home on the remote Suffolk coast, to retreat from their daily lives and take comfort in their friendship. Over the years, their paths have not been easy. For Bea, the aftermath of a broken-hearted love affair influences the decisions she makes. For Marissa, the fear that her traumatic past will catch up with her haunts her still. And, for Emma, the sacrifices she has made for her family leave her full of longing and regret.

Victory Girls is the sixth poignant saga in Helen Carey's much-loved Lavender Road series, set in south London during the Second World War. Not to be missed by fans of Katie Flynn, Annie Murray and Lilian Harry. August 1944. Allied troops are fighting their way across Europe. But rocket attacks on London are a chilling reminder that the war is far from over. Helen knows all too well how dangerous it is in war-torn France. But it's a long time since she heard from her French fiancé, Andre, and nothing is going to stop her going back to track him down before he is lost to her forever.

Lilia is an emotionally wrenching coming-of-age and compelling family drama. Trapped under Mussolini’s reign and Hitler’s occupation, this riveting true story is propelled by a brave girl’s courage and a family’s bond as they struggle to survive the battle between the forces of evil and the power of love.

Only a few months earlier, the young woman now known as Jane Smith had lived a life of luxury and privilege as the ruler of a small Balkan kingdom. She lived a life of glittering balls, the finest furnishings, the most handsome men, the most exquisite of foods. Her only friends were four bearded old men who served as her cabinet, and worshiped the ground she walked on. Then the Germans had marched in, and she and her four councilors barely escaped with their lives.

Heart on Her Sleeve is the story of a patriotic American college girl who steps up to run her father’s war plant when he is hospitalized by saboteurs. Not long after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and US entry into the Second World War, the government realized the draft would seriously deplete the country’s entire workforce, including entry-level labor, skilled trades, office staff, and management. The only possible replacement was to be found in the ranks of the nation’s women. But for women to join the workforce, major changes would have to occur.

Lyon, 1941. As Nazi forces march steadily through France and Jewish families seek refuge from persecution, seventeen-year-old Juta wakes one morning to find her sister, Sara, gone. And when Juta discovers that Sara has been wrongfully accused of espionage and arrested by German soldiers, she traces it all back to one man. A cruel, obsessive man who believes himself scorned by her family and who will stop at nothing to see them suffer. Arno.