Showing titles in 20th Century

Elisabetta, a feisty beauty who dreams of becoming a novelist, Marco, the brash and athletic son of professional cyclists, and Sandro, a kind-hearted and thoughtful Jewish mathematics prodigy, grow up best of friends. Their friendship blossoms to love, with both Sandro and Marco hoping to win Elisabetta's heart. But in the autumn of 1937, everything changes as Mussolini asserts his power, aligning Italy's Fascists with Hitler's Nazis. Soon, everything that they hold dear is tested in ways they never could have imagined.

Every time Sebastien speaks to Finley, she finds herself inching closer to him, and soon love begins to grow. But when he tells her he wants to join the English army, to fight the people who have forced his family to face such horror, she must work hard to crush the devastation in her heart. She knows if she were in his shoes, she would do the same thing, and she must be brave too. She will stay in London, waiting for Sebastien, and helping other refugees like him. As the bombs rain down, and the London streets empty, she knows she faces grave dangers.

Paris, 1944. Charlotte Foret is working in a tiny bookstore in Nazi-occupied Paris struggling to stay alive and keep her baby Vivi safe. Every day they live through is a miracle until Vivi becomes gravely ill. In desperation, Charlotte accepts help from an unlikely saviour - and her life is changed forever.

When the Nazis march onto the cobbled streets of Colmar on November 1st 1940, Josef, a Jewish violin maker, gathers his wife and daughters closely to him and tells them everything will be alright. But one year later, three sharp knocks on the door at midnight turn his 17-year-old daughter Sarah’s world upside down. As the oldest child, Sarah must be the first to leave her family, to make her escape in a perilous journey across France via Paris to Poitiers. In the mountains she finds herself in terrible danger and meets Ralf, a German deserter, who risks his own life to save her.

À Prague, en 1942, deux hommes doivent en tuer un troisième. C'est l'opération "Anthropoïde" : deux parachutistes tchécoslovaques envoyés par Londres sont chargés d'assassiner Reinhard Heydrich, chef de la Gestapo, chef des services secrets nazis, planificateur de la solution finale, "le bourreau de Prague", "la bête blonde", "l'homme le plus dangereux du IIIe Reich". Heydrich était le chef d'Eichmann et le bras droit d'Himmler, mais chez les SS, on disait : "HHhH".

Set against the backdrop of the Second World War, this is the heartbreaking story of a young girl in love, the secret she must never reveal and the family who betrayed her trust. It's 1942 and the world is at war. Yet the wealthy Belleville family appear untouched and secure in their grand Australian home Prior Park. That is until daughter Julia, on the cusp of womanhood, falls desperately in love with an American Army officer against her family's wishes. For Julia, it is life-changing.

German tanks rumble through the streets of Paris, forcing frightened citizens to flee. But not everyone has the luxury to leave. Camille Lacroix, a chambermaid at the world-famous Hôtel Ritz, must stay to support her family back home in Brittany. Desperate to earn money, Camille also acts as a lady’s maid for longtime guest Vivian Miller, a glamorous American widow—and a Nazi sympathiser.

When a beautiful English-speaking young woman named Anya is recruited to be a Russian spy working with the Nazi party, her first thought is that it means she can escape a terrifying situation at home. But when she finds herself sent to work as a land girl in a beautiful corner of England and begins to make friends—ones she knows she may have to betray—she fears she’s made a terrible mistake. The only person she can turn to is her fellow informer, Nikolai, and she finds herself impossibly drawn to his quiet intensity. But being together increases the risk to them both.

High in the Appalachian mountains is a place quite unlike any other. The Avallon Hotel and its enigmatic General Manager, June Hudson, are famed for offering unrivalled luxury, season after season, to those who come from far and wide to indulge in its beautiful hot springs and take the healing waters. Everything is perfect. Perhaps too perfect.

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.

December, 1940. As German bombs fall on Southampton, the city’s residents flee to the surrounding villages. In Upton village, amid the chaos, newly married Ellen Parr finds a girl sleeping, unclaimed at the back of an empty bus. Little Pamela, it seems, is entirely alone. Ellen has always believed she does not want children, but when she takes Pamela into her home the child cracks open the past Ellen thought she had escaped and the future she and her husband, Selwyn, had dreamed for themselves. As the war rages on, love grows where it was least expected, surprising them all.

Natalie Morgen made a name for herself with a memoir about overcoming her harsh childhood after finding a new life in Paris. After falling in love with a classically trained chef, they moved together to his ancestral home, a tiny fishing village off the coast of Brittany. But then Francois-Xavier breaks things off with her without warning, leaving her flat broke and in the middle of renovating the guesthouse they planned to open for business.

This extraordinary novel is seen through the eyes of Johannes, an avid member of the Hitler Youth in the 1940s. After he is severely injured in a raid, he discovers his parents are hiding a Jewish girl called Elsa behind a false wall in their large house in Vienna. His initial horror turns to interest, then love and obsession. After the disappearance of his parents, Johannes finds he is the only one aware of Elsa's existence in the house, the only one responsible for her survival.

London, September 1941. Following the departure of the formidable editor, Henrietta Bird, from Woman’s Friend magazine, things are looking up for Emmeline Lake as she takes on the challenge of becoming a young wartime advice columnist. Her relationship with boyfriend Charles is blossoming, while Emmy’s best friend, Bunty, is still reeling from the very worst of the Blitz, but bravely looking to the future. Together, the friends are determined to make a go of it.

London, 1940. When nurse Elsie offers to send a reassuring letter to the family of a patient, she has an idea. She begins a book of last letters: messages to be sent on to wounded soldiers’ loved ones should the very worst come to pass so that no one is left without a final goodbye. London, present day. Stephanie has a lot of people she’d like to speak to: her estranged brother, to whom her last words were in anger; her nan, whose dementia means she is only occasionally lucid enough to talk.

In Paris 1940, survival means sacrifice. Like most in the city, Detective Eddie Giral has already lost so much under Occupation: the people he once loved, the job he once believed in. And his latest investigation into the murder of a black-marketeer has made it clearer than ever: Eddie is no longer just catching criminals. He's working for them. Because when a German trader is the next to die, the authorities decide it's innocent civilians who will pay the price - unless Eddie can find the killer in time.

1944, Germany: After years of hiding from the Nazis, Rachel Epstein and her little sister Mindel are captured by the Gestapo and sent to the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. The only ray of light for either girl is that they are together. But on arrival, they are separated. As she’s 17 and deemed an adult, Rachel is sent to work in a brutal factory, whilst four-year-old Mindel is sent into the so-called “star” camp for Jewish prisoners. All on her own, Rachel knows her sister will have no chance of survival - unless she can find someone to take care of her.

In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt watches uneasily as the world heads rapidly down a dangerous path. The Japanese have waged an aggressive campaign against China, and they now begin to expand their ambitions to other parts of Asia. As their expansion efforts grow bolder, their enemies know that Japan's ultimate goal is total conquest over the region, especially when the Japanese align themselves with Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy, who wage their own war of conquest across Europe.

Helsingør, Denmark, 1943. In the midst of the German occupation during World War Two, Inger Bredhal joins the underground resistance and risks her life to save members of Denmark’s Jewish community and help them escape to Sweden. Copenhagen, 2018. Inger’s granddaughter Cecilie Lund is mourning her death when a mysterious discovery while cleaning out Inger’s flat leads past and present to intersect. As long-held secrets finally see the light of day, Cecilie learns the story of her grandmother’s courage and bravery.

Clemmie throws herself into volunteering with the very organisation who helped her and her sisters when they were homeless: the WVS. Demonstrating a natural flair, painfully shy Clemmie is soon drafted to set up one of the British Welcome Clubs aimed at easing American troops' integration into English life. There, she meets Squadron Leader Dunning who, shot down in the Blitz, has been left partially paralysed. As friendship turns to something more, Clemmie faces an impossible decision - sacrifice her dreams of motherhood, or lose the man she's learning to love.