Women World War

Iris Maynard lost her husband in World War II, her daughter to illness and, finally, her reason to live. Walled off from the world for decades behind the towering fence surrounding her home, Iris has built a new family…of flowers. Iris propagates her own daylilies and roses while tending to a garden filled with the heirloom starts that keep the memories of her loved ones alive.

Two young friends are separated by unspeakable tragedy during the Greek Civil War, haunted by a vow to return to one another and their home on the island of Corfu where queens, villagers, and goddesses come together to prove there is no force more powerful than the magic of a mother’s love.

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.

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.

Once inseparable, Berlin teenagers Ilse Fischer and Renate Bauer find their friendship ripped apart by their nation’s abrupt swing into fascism. Ilse, a so-called Aryan, throws her lot in with the Nazi Party, while Renate sees her once-secure world dismantled by Adolf Hitler's race laws and then shattered by a shocking betrayal. Decades later, that same betrayal will upend the life of Ilse's daughter, Ava, as she discovers long-buried truths about her mother's past.

When the Nazi occupation of Rome begins, two courageous young women are plunged deep into the Italian Resistance to fight for their freedom in this captivating debut novel.

Stumbling through the terrifying wrought iron gates of Auschwitz, Jewish author Etty Weil longs for her apartment overlooking the Seine, where she used to laugh with friends, her shelves full of records and her beloved typewriter by the wide window. Now she looks on in horror as a young girl, Danielle, is ruthlessly torn apart from her sobbing mother. Etty has always longed for the warm embrace of family: and trapped inside the maze of barbed wire, she takes fourteen-year-old Danielle under her wing and soon comes to cherish her like a sister.

Father-daughter duo Jonathan and Emily Jordan uncover the ingenious wartime tactics of some of history’s most powerful female leaders across millennia and continents, from the stifling battlefields of ancient Egypt to the frigid waters off the Falkland Islands.

Farhana Qazi draws on her background as a pioneering counterterrorism professional and a devout Muslim to offer an insider’s view of what drives girls and women to join radical Islamic movements and how we can keep them from making this terrible choice.

A growing number of intrepid Arab and Middle Eastern sahafiyat - female journalists - are working tirelessly to shape nuanced narratives about their changing homelands, often risking their lives on the front lines of war. From sexual harassment on the streets of Cairo to the difficulty of traveling without a male relative in Yemen, their challenges are unique - as are their advantages, such as being able to speak candidly with other women at a Syrian medical clinic or with men on Whatsapp who will go on to become ISIS fighters, rebels, or pro-regime soldiers.

Berlin, 1934. Homes once filled with laughter stand empty as the Nazi party’s grip on the city tightens. When Anna Tiegel’s beautiful best friend catches Reich Minister Goebbels’ special attention, an impulsive act to save her brings Anna under his unforgiving scrutiny. First, she loses her job, then slowly, mercilessly, she finds her life stripped away. After her father is killed by the Nazis, Anna’s final hope is to escape to America with her boyfriend Eddy, but when she reaches his apartment on the agreed date, she finds it deserted.

November, 1941. She’s never even seen the ocean before, but Eva Cassidy has her reasons for making the crossing to Hawaii, and they run a lot deeper than escaping a harsh Michigan winter. Newly enlisted as an Army Corps nurse, Eva is stunned by the splendor she experiences aboard the steamship SS Lurline; even more so by Lt. Clark Spencer, a man she is drawn to but who clearly has secrets of his own. But Eva’s past - and the future she’s trying to create - means that she’s not free to follow her heart.

As a young civil servant, Caroline Slocock became the first ever female private secretary to any British Prime Minister and was at Margaret Thatcher's side for the final 18 months of her premiership. A left-wing feminist, Slocock was no natural ally, and yet she became fascinated by the woman behind the Iron Lady façade and by how she dealt with a world dominated by men. As events inexorably led to Margaret Thatcher's downfall, Slocock observed the vulnerabilities and contradictions of the woman considered by many to be the ultimate anti-feminist.

Discover how brave and daring female spies crossed enemy borders and infiltrated countries as they couriered military and political secrets. Many officers were usually unsuspecting of the women they met in brothels and late-night cafés. These female spies excelled at wheedling secrets out of high officials through their powers of seduction.

Jeannie Rousseau appeared to be just a highly educated girl, fluent in five languages, graduating at the top of her class at the elite university, the Paris Institute of Political Sciences. She had no idea she would become one of the most amazing women in WWII. When the German troops invaded France, Rousseau fought back—using nothing other than her gifted mind. Jeannie Rousseau bravely took on the Gestapo, posing as an ally and sympathizer to extract the highly sensitive, secret plans of the Nazi party.

Carve Her Name with Pride is the inspiring story of the half-French Violette Szabo who was born in Paris in 1921 to an English motorcar dealer, and a French Mother. She met and married Etienne Szabo, a Captain in the French Foreign Legion in 1940. Shortly after the birth of her daughter, Tania, her husband died at El Alamein. She became a FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) and was recruited into the SOE and underwent secret agent training. Her first trip to France was completed successfully even though she was arrested and then released by the French Police.

We Band of Angelsis the story of women searching for adventure, caught up in the drama and danger of war. On the same day the Japanese Imperial Navy launched its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, it also struck American bases in the Far East, chief among them the Philippines. That raid led to the first major land battle for America in World War II and, in the end, to the largest defeat and surrender of American forces.

Septima Collis, a native of South Carolina, married Union general Charles H.T. Collis prior to the Civil War. She supported and accompanied her husband during the Civil War. This rendition is beautifully narrated by Suzi Woods.

Paris, 1938. Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli are fighting for recognition as the most successful and influential fashion designer in France, and their rivalry is already legendary. They oppose each other at every turn, in both their politics and their designs: Chanel's are classic, elegant, and practical; Schiaparelli's bold, experimental, and surreal. When Lily Sutter travels to Paris to visit her brother, Charlie, he insists on buying her a couture dress for her birthday - a Chanel. Lily reluctantly agrees but wants a Schiaparelli, not a Chanel.

For Jane Re, half-Korean, half-American orphan, Flushing, Queens, is the place she’s been trying to escape from her whole life. Sardonic yet vulnerable, Jane toils, unappreciated, in her strict uncle’s grocery store and politely observes the traditional principle of nunchi (a combination of good manners, hierarchy, and obligation). Desperate for a new life, she’s thrilled to become the au pair for the Mazer-Farleys, two Brooklyn English professors and their adopted Chinese daughter.