Historical Fiction War Ii

Sam Carlson is a projectionist in small-town Minnesota, where fantasies unspool in glorious black and white—for him and for his sweetheart, college-bound math whiz Sarah Haber. When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Sam is sent to the Philippines and captured as a POW. Brutalized but unbroken by the Bataan Death March and POW camps, Sam is one of eighteen hundred starved and weakened prisoners herded into the cargo hold of a barbaric hell ship called the Arisan Maru, his survival doubtful.

New research has uncovered deeply buried military secrets—both the Allied and Axis special operations during WWII included monsters. Did the Soviets use a dragon to win the Battle of Kursk? Did a vampire fight for the Canadians in Holland? Did the US drop the second atomic bomb on a kaiju? This collection takes real events from World War II and injects them with fantastical creatures that mirror the “unreality” of war itself. Each story—and two poems—feature mythical, mystical, and otherwise unexplainable beings that change the course of history.

Edie Burchill and her mother have never been close, but when a long lost letter arrives with the return address of Milderhurst Castle, Kent, printed on its envelope, Edie begins to suspect that her mother’s emotional distance masks an old secret. Evacuated from London as a 13-year-old girl, Edie’s mother is chosen by the mysterious Juniper Blythe, and taken to live at Milderhurst Castle with the Blythe family.

As the dutiful daughter of a high-ranking Nazi officer, Hetty Heinrich is keen to play her part in the glorious new Thousand Year Reich. But she never imagines that all she believes and knows about her world will come into stark conflict when she encounters Walter, a Jewish friend from the past, who stirs dangerous feelings in her. Confused and conflicted, Hetty doesn’t know whom she can trust and where she can turn to, especially when she discovers that someone has been watching her.

Island of the World is the story of a child born in 1933 into the turbulent world of the Balkans and tracing his life into the third millennium. The central character is Josip Lasta, the son of an impoverished school teacher in a remote village high in the mountains of the Bosnian interior. As the novel begins, World War II is underway and the entire region of Yugoslavia is torn by conflicting factions: German and Italian occupying armies, and the rebel forces that resist them the fascist Ustashe, Serb nationalist Chetniks, and Communist Partisans.

De l'émergence du IIIe Reich à l'aube de l'ère atomique, la grande aventure du XXe siècle telle que personne ne l'a jamais racontée. 1933, Hitler s'apprête à prendre le pouvoir : l'Allemagne entame les heures les plus sombres de son histoire et va entraîner le monde entier dans la barbarie et la destruction. Cinq familles de nationalités différentes, intimement liées, vont être emportées par le tourbillon de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Amours contrariées, douloureux secrets, tragédies, coups du sort.

Paris, 1944: The war is nearly over, but for members of the Resistance in occupied France, it is more dangerous than ever before. Twenty-five-year-old Gabby Foucher loathes the Nazis, though as the concierge of 10 rue Royale, she does her best to avoid conflict - unlike her bolder sister Yvette, who finds trouble at every turn.

A lone soldier wearing a German uniform stumbles into a British military camp in the North African desert with an incredible story to tell. He is the only survivor of an undercover operation meant to infiltrate a Nazi base, trading on the soldiers’ perfect fluency in German. However, this man is not British-born but instead a German Jew seeking revenge for the deaths of his family back home in Berlin.

In the summer of 1943, Eva Brunner is taking photographs of Nazi-looted art hidden in the salt mines of the Austrian hinterland. Across the ocean in Connecticut, Josephine Evans is working as a humble typist at the Yale Art Gallery. When both women are called to Italy to contribute to the war effort, neither imagines she will hold the fate of some of the world’s greatest masterpieces torn from the Uffizi Galleries and other Florentine art collections in her hands.

Camera-shy Elise Branson is different from the other women in her maternal line. Her mother is an award-winning actress. Her late grandmother, Vivian Snow, is a beloved Hollywood icon. But when Elise’s upcoming wedding coincides with a documentary being made about Vivian, Elise can’t escape the camera’s gaze. And neither can her grandmother, even in death.

The New York Times best-selling authors of The Glass Ocean and The Forgotten Room return with a glorious historical adventure that moves from the dark days of two World Wars to the turbulent years of the 1960s, in which three women with bruised hearts find refuge at Paris’ legendary Ritz hotel. The heiress...the Resistance fighter...the widow...three women whose fates are joined by one splendid hotel.

Young, ambitious, and tempestuous, Odile Souchet has it all: Paul, her handsome police officer beau; Margaret, her best friend from England; Remy, her twin brother who she adores; and a dream job at the American Library in Paris, working alongside the library’s legendary director, Dorothy Reeder.

Twin sisters Dot and Dash Wilson share many things: a birthday, a best friend named Gus, and a secret shorthand based on Morse code, a language their father, a WWI veteran, taught them as children. But that’s where their similarities end. While Dot’s nose is always in a book, preferably the latest by Agatha Christie, Dash is a social butterfly and spends her evenings out dancing. Despite their differences, the sisters have a close bond—until one develops romantic feelings for Gus.

Paris, 1939. Maison Chanel has closed, thrusting haute couture dressmaker Lila de Laurent out of the world of high fashion as Nazi soldiers invade the streets and the City of Lights slips into darkness. Lila’s life is now a series of rations, brutal restrictions, and carefully controlled propaganda while Paris is cut off from the rest of the world. Yet in hidden corners of the city, the faithful pledge to resist. Lila is drawn to La Resistance and is soon using her skills as a dressmaker to infiltrate the Nazi elite.

Soline Roussel is well schooled in the business of happy endings. For generations her family has kept an exclusive bridal salon in Paris, where magic is worked with needle and thread. It’s said that the bride who wears a Roussel gown is guaranteed a lifetime of joy. But devastating losses during World War II leave Soline’s world and heart in ruins and her faith in love shaken. She boxes up her memories, stowing them away, along with her broken dreams, determined to forget.

Amsterdam, 1941. When the Nazis invade Amsterdam, singer Johanna Vos watches in horror as her Jewish friends are forbidden from performing with her onstage, and the vibrant music scene she loves is all but erased. Johanna helps organize the Artists’ Resistance, an underground network that arranges for Jewish musicians to perform at house concerts hosted by their allies. When Johanna is told about a Jewish orphan who is headed for deportation, she does not think twice: she takes the baby in as her own, hiding the truth from everyone, including her sister, Liesbeth.

The island of Iwo Jima was the epic land and sea battle that produced one of the iconic images of WWII: the Marines raising the American flag on Mount Surabachi, an active volcano that was the site of intense hand to hand combat. In this gripping novel, P. T. Deutermann follows a young gunnery liaison officer, Lee Bishop, who during the ferocious battle for the island is pulled from his station aboard the USS Nevada to serve onshore as a spotter, calling in coordinates for the ship to target with missiles.

In July 1944, Arielle von Auspeck arrives at the glamorous Hotel Ritz in occupied Paris. Half French, half German, she is happy to be back in France, where her husband, Gregor, a retired colonel, will join her soon from Germany. Arielle and Gregor have thus far been able to hide their private opposition to Hitler. Then her world falls apart. She receives word that Gregor was part of Operation Valkyrie, a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler in Poland, and has been shot as a traitor.

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 ?

From the author of The Lost Girls of Paris comes a riveting tale of courage and unlikely friendship during World War II - now a New York Times best seller.