Showing titles in 20th Century

Tadeusz Borowski’s concentration camp stories were based on his own experiences surviving Auschwitz and Dachau. In spare, brutal prose he describes a world where where the will to survive overrides compassion, and prisoners eat, work, and sleep a few yards from where others are murdered; where the difference between human beings is reduced to a second bowl of soup, an extra blanket, or the luxury of a pair of shoes with thick soles; and where the line between normality and abnormality vanishes.

It's 1911, and 21-year-old Evelyn Northey desperately wants to become a doctor. Her medico father forbids it, withholding the inheritance that would allow her to go to university. At the outbreak of World War I, Evelyn disobeys her father: she enlists as an army nurse bound for Egypt to care for the wounded from the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.

The Palazzo Colombina is home to the Uccello family: three generations of men, trapped together in the dusty palace on Venice's Grand Canal. Awkward 15-year-old Nico. His distant, business-focused father. And his beloved grandfather, Paolo. Paolo is dying. But before he passes, he has secrets he's waited his whole life to share.

July 1940. As Britain braces itself for invasion, ex-Tommy and safecracker Bill O'Hagan is glad to have escaped the battlefield. But when a job goes wrong, he finds himself forced to serve his country once more. Spurned by his government and fearing for his life, the Duke of Windsor flees to Portugal with the woman for whom he abdicated the throne, Wallis Simpson. As a web of Nazi trickery threatens to ensnare him, his fate and the fate of Britain rest on one man.

Summer, 1945. The nation rejoices as the Second World War comes to an end, but Banbury Street matriarch Eva Parke foresees trouble ahead. Her daughter, Mildred, awaits the return of her fiancé from overseas duty, and doubts begin to seep into her mind about how little she knows of the man she has promised to marry. Meanwhile new neighbour, dancer Cissie Cresswell, hides a terrible secret. Can the two young women unite to face the doubt and uncertainty of the future?

When Katja Heinz secures a job as a typist in Hamburg working for Doctor Viktor’s clinic, she doesn’t expect to be writing up top secret medical records. Doctor Viktor treated soldiers for PTSD at the end of the first world war – and one of the patients was none other than Adolf Hitler.... The notes in his possession declare Hitler unfit for office; exposing such a secret would destroy the Fuhrer's reputation, and perhaps even change the course of the war.

In the hills of Tennessee, two women work at a Manhattan Project site during World War II and uncover truths that irrevocably change their lives in this captivating new story from award-winning Southern fiction author Michelle Shocklee.

Nineteen-year-old Hedy can't bear her country's neutrality in the face of the ultimate evil. This is not the Switzerland she loves, and she realises she cannot stand by without acting any longer. She joins a group smuggling Jewish children through the forest from France to refugee camps in Geneva. It's dangerous work—there are German patrols everywhere—but finally Hedy feels she is doing something worthwhile.

Norway, 1940. Liv has lived a quiet life on her family farm, dreaming of a happy life after the war is finally over. But all of her dreams vanish when the Nazi soldiers arrive in her village and a senior officer see something special in her... something that Hitler and the high command in Berlin is desperate to have at any cost. England, 1968. Agnes, although made orphan from the war, has grown up happy in the quiet wealth of the English countryside, raised by her adoring grandfather to be a perfect lady.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER In a “riveting” (Booklist) tale that picks up where To Wake the Giant left off, Jeff Shaara transports us to the Battle of Midway in another masterpiece of military historical fiction. Spring 1942. The United States is reeling from the blow the Japanese inflicted at...

Paris, 1940. Clutching a delicate silver dove-shaped brooch–the last gift from her beloved Otto, with a message of love engraved in the back–Lally flees her home in Paris. With her closest friend by her side, she dodges the Nazi gunfire echoing all around the city streets. But as they become more and more desperate during the darkest days Europe has ever known, one must make a terrible sacrifice for them both to survive…

West Yorkshire, 1914. Newly married to Noah Jackson, Beth is happily content working on her family's market stall while Noah fulfils his dreams of being a teacher. When war erupts, Beth's peaceful life is shattered by events beyond her control. Noah enlists to fight alongside his brothers. A devastating accident occurs that changes all their lives. Once a loving home, Beaumont Farm becomes Beth's responsibility.

When beautiful, shy Edith married her elegant banker husband, Julius, she believed that their union would be forever. In spite of her humble background, they have loved each other since the minute they met at a dance. As she learns how to behave in the high-society world Julius has opened to her, she is determined to enjoy every moment. But the Nazi party is growing in power, and her marriage comes under increasing strain. Julius is of Jewish origin—and even some of Edith’s closest family believe their relationship is an abomination, demanding she divorce him.

“[Readers] are bound to be caught up in the adventures of Bess Crawford . . . While her sensibility is as crisp as her narrative voice, Bess is a compassionate nurse who responds with feeling.”— The New York Times Book Review In the uneasy peace following World War I, nurse Bess Crawford...

Like most gentiles in Nazi-occupied Paris, architect Lucien Bernard has little empathy for the Jews. So when a wealthy industrialist offers him a large sum of money to devise secret hiding places for Jews, Lucien struggles with the choice of risking his life for a cause he doesn't really believe...

"I want everyone I know to read this book." --Kelly Rimmer, New York Times bestselling author of The Things We Cannot Say For fans of The Warsaw Orphan and The Tattooist of Auschwitz. The start of WWII changed everything in Poland irrevocably--except for one man's capacity to love. September 1...

A strange twist of fate connects a British soldier fighting in WWI in 1916 with a young woman living in modern-day England a century later, in this haunting best-selling literary time-travel novel.

Summer 1941. War rages in Europe. The Germans march towards Ukraine. Halya, Liliya and Vika are no strangers to sorrow. They lost family during the Holodomor, loved ones in Stalin's purges, and war looms once more on the horizon. These daughters of Ukraine will face devastation and loss as they fight to survive and protect the ones they love.

The four Grace sisters love their quiet life in the country village of Chevis Green. To some, their insular world might seem dull, but the sisters never seem to run out of conversation, jokes, and pleasant ways to pass the time together. They truly are the happiest of families. That is, until Aunt Rona comes to town. Rona intends to stay with the Graces indefinitely, and her meddlesome attitude immediately sets the sisters' teeth on edge. Throw in another unexpected houseguest, some potential suitors and a case of mistaken intentions, and the members of the Grace family suddenly find themselves quite out of their element.

Whip-smart librarian Peggy Sparks is determined to make sure that her brother Joe returns from the frontline to their London home, which they share with their beloved mother and grandmother. So when she is offered a once-in-a-lifetime job at the heart of the war effort, Peggy jumps at the prospect of making a real contribution to her country. But when she finds herself working under the fanciful socialite Lady Marigold Cecily, Peggy discovers that those around her are more keen on dancing at the Café de Paris than on ending the war.