World War Ii Romance

After their dreams of starting a family are crushed, Philippa and her husband Marco need a fresh start. Focusing on repairing the crumbling walls and leaking roof of the Cotswolds house they impulsively bought seems easier work than repairing their relationship. When Philippa finds a hidden memorial hidden deep in the garden, the discovery only pushes them further apart. But as Philippa determines to uncover the truth behind the memorial, could the secrets it reveals be the key to finally putting their heartbreak to rest?

July 1942 Dear diary, despite the war raging around me, I find I can’t stop thinking about the American officer, Sergeant Dale Johnson. I’ve never known anyone as brave, kind and handsome! But I promised myself I wouldn’t care this much about a man again, especially when he could be transferred at any time. Yet that only makes me want to relish our time together. Now fighting my heart feels like the biggest battle.

After a failed honey-trap mission for British Intelligence leads to the breakdown of her marriage, French journalist Iris escapes to Dijon, seeking refuge in the cottage of her beloved aunt, Eva. But Eva is gone, the streets are full of distrust, and Iris is soon followed by the very last man she wants to see – the British civil servant and traitor she was tasked with catching, now keen to rekindle their affair. Eva’s home used to be a comforting place, where the locals sought out Eva’s homemade tinctures and cures and gifted jars of fresh honey from the garden. Now it is a place of danger.

Die junge Berlinerin Nelly verschlägt es in den Wirren des Zweiten Weltkriegs in einen holländischen Küstenort. Dort soll sie die Pflichten des alten Leuchtturmwärters übernehmen, der in einer stürmischen Nacht verschwand. Keine leichte Aufgabe für ein Großstadtkind wie Nelly, die keine Ahnung von den Gezeiten oder Schiffsverkehr hat. Von den Dorfbewohnern erfährt sie keine Unterstützung, diese begegnen der jungen Deutschen mit Feindseligkeit. Als Nelly einen abgestürzten britischen Piloten im Turm versteckt und sich in ihn verliebt, gerät sie zwischen die Fronten des Widerstands und einer brutalen Besatzungsmacht.

Essex 1941. Unhappy with life at home with her privileged family, Hannah Austen-Bagshaw runs away to join the Land Girls Army, carrying with her a dark and terrible secret. Life on the farm is tough, but when Hannah meets handsome working-class flight lieutenant Jack, they form an immediate friendship. But unbeknownst to Jack, Hannah is sheltering a young German pilot who has crash landed in a nearby field. Torn between her duty and her humanity, Hannah knows she risks being arrested as a traitor, but she cannot see the young pilot suffer.

Shortly before the Japanese invade, the van Hoorn family throws their famous Sinterklaas party at their tea plantation in West Java. One of their guests, Mattijs, a Dutch pilot, hopes to forge a future in the Dutch East Indies, possibly with the family's daughter Anna, but she is torn between her dreams of Holland and her desire to belong. Meanwhile the housekeeper, Diah, keenly observes the goings-on around the plantation, wondering how much to tell her freedom-fighter brother.

1924. The First World War is over and eleven-year-old Alexa is growing up on the idyllic Cornish coast with her best friend Harvey. But she soon discovers there are secrets at the heart of her family that have been hidden for years. And when her mother dies suddenly, she finds her whole life thrown into turmoil. 1931. Still reeling from the secrets she uncovered, Alexa flees to the intoxicating city of Venice. But her new glamorous life is not what she hoped for and, with dark shadows closing in, she will question everything she thought she wanted.

Anna Winter, a young woman unwittingly caught up inside a ring of sophisticated Nazi spies, chooses to flee Germany in 1933, taking her precious doll collection with her as she sets sail for Australia. Soon after her arrival she finds herself in a remote outback town, working as a nanny for the family of Tom O'Hara, owner of the Birdum Hotel. Doubling up as the local bartender and cook, Anna hides her past from the world, until a chance encounter with an eccentric stranger, Alter Mayseh, changes everything.

While her husband and daughter work at the Cadbury's Bournville factory, Ann Gilby has her hands full at home with her youngest, Martin, and other daughter Sheila, newly returned home with baby Elaine. With Sheila's husband away doing his bit in the RAF, Ann knows she should be grateful to have all her children safe under one roof. But she can't help but fear for their uncertain future as bombs fall ever closer to her Birmingham home.

Summer 1935. Best friends Kate Shelton, Ella Tetley and Daphne St. Maur are on the cusp of a new life, having graduated with classics degrees. Kate is desperate to start work on an archaeological dig straightaway, and she is thrilled to be given a position at the famous Knossos palace site in Crete. However, she doesn't bargain for working with gruff site director Lewis Sinclair - nor for her own complex feelings towards him. In Yorkshire, Ella's family expect her to marry Sam, her steady friend who is training to be a doctor....

When Dr. Nadia Harris inherits a London property from an unknown benefactor, her academic research skills take on a forensic precision. She uncovers the tragic details of the real-life love affair between Tassos and Princess Azzah: a love that spanned the decades and had its roots in a war-torn Europe and a Middle East that, though clinging onto tradition, was battling against a painful, imposed identity crisis. Her research provides Tassos Charalampis with a life-changing revelation, while he—now an old man—becomes increasingly eager to share his epic love story with her.

Stratford-upon-Avon, 1940. Rosalind Arden, born into one of the oldest families in England, has grown up running wild through the walled gardens and secret passages of historic Arden House, known to have once been frequented by Shakespeare himself. But centuries of squandered wealth have left the family destitute, and Papa Arden plans to replenish the coffers by securing hasty marriages to the highest bidder for Rosalind and her sisters. Passionate and headstrong, Rosalind is quickly running out of ways to avoid this fate. But then war comes to England.

Christmas Eve, 2019. Ninety-four-year-old Molly lies in her hospital bed. A stroke and a fall may have broken her body - but her mind is alive with memories. London, 1940s. Molly is a bright young woman, determined to help the war effort and keep her head up despite it all. Life becomes brighter when she meets and falls in love with a man who makes her forget everything with one dance. But then war forces her to make an unforgettable sacrifice.

August, 1940. The war is raging in Europe, but on the home front conflict still seems far away. Dot, living with her mother-in-law and dreading the day that her thuggish husband comes home on leave, is fighting her own battle to contribute to the war effort. Peggy has found confidence as an Air Raid Precaution Warden, despite the jeers of the men she works with - but beneath her pluck she fears for her close-knit family, scattered by the war. And glamorous Vivian, the former debutante, is running away from her own heart and into danger as a volunteer ambulance driver.

East London, 1940. At the outbreak of war, hopeless romantic Prue Carmichael and her sister must leave their rural parish behind when their father is posted to a church in Stepney. To Prue, the blitz-ravaged streets of London seem an unlikely place for love to bloom – until a chance encounter throws rakish engineer Jack Quinn into her path. But as their connection deepens, his troubled past begins to emerge, and Prue realises Jack has secrets to hide.

Parijs, 1940. De jonge Française Elise besluit zich aan te melden bij het verzet als de nazi's haar stad bezetten. Sebastian is een jonge Duitse soldaat die werkt als vertaler in het leger. Ze ontmoeten elkaar, worden verliefd en genieten van het onvoorziene geluk dat ze in elkaar hebben gevonden. Na de bevrijding wordt het jonge paar echter op tragische wijze van elkaar gescheiden: het Franse verzet arresteert Sebastian en ziet Elise als verrader, waardoor ze naar Bretagne vlucht voor haar eigen veiligheid.

Een prachtig verhaal over de vele vormen van liefde – maar vooral over die ene, ware, eeuwigdurende. In het Noord-Italië van de jaren dertig groeit Evelina op als knappe jongste dochter van de familie Pierangelini. Ze is verliefd op Ezra Zanotti, de muzikaal getalenteerde zoon van een Joodse stoffenhandelaar. Tussen de twee ontluikt een geheime romance, maar als in 1939 Mussolini een verbond sluit met Hitler komt hun toekomst op losse schroeven te staan. Als overtuigd patriot denkt Ezra's vader dat de nazi's hem en zijn familie met rust zullen laten maar ze worden allemaal gevangengenomen.

1941. Maisie yearns for a family of her own. Raised as a charity orphan in a Catholic convent in Ireland, she believed she was all alone in the world. But when she is twelve, her world is turned upside down by a shocking revelation. She is uprooted from the only life she has ever known, and transplanted against her will to Plymouth, England. Family might not be all it's cracked up to be. But Maisie is resilient. She surrounds herself with a family of her own making. Then war breaks out across Europe and a horrific tragedy occurs during one of the worst nights of the Plymouth Blitz.

Andra världskriget slut och Brunos personliga nederlag är ett faktum. Vännerna är borta och ingen vill längre kännas vid honom för hans tidigare sympatier för nationalsocialisterna och Hitler. Romanen utspelar sig under två dygn då Bruno tänker tillbaka på livet med Clary, hans livs kärlek som han gång på gång svek. Den här allra sista gången ska han inte göra det. Hennes och sin egen ära ska han prisa. Även om det så är det sista han gör.

1945 – krigen i Stillehavet er slut. Blandt de ruiner, den har efterladt sig, er en lille gruppe mænd på et militærhospital på en ø »et sted i Ostindien«. De er på en særlig afdeling. Afdeling X. Afdelingen for »trope-kuller«. Krigsneurose. Fem mand og en sygeplejerske, som de tilbeder, og som er klar til at slås for dem og deres ret til at blive betragtet som mennesker. En hårfin balance mellem vidt forskellige personligheder. Da brydes billedet.