Showing results by publisher "--Tyson Hanks" in World War II & Holocaust

Can their friendship survive the darkest days of war? When Abigail arrives for a new start in Bristol in the late 1930s, she knows life won’t be easy - particularly as she is the unmarried mother of three-year-old Emily Grace. But as the war starts to take over the city and threaten their very existence, will Abigail’s new friends, Carrie and Eileen, be enough to keep herself and her daughter safe?

From enchanting cliff tops and white sandy bays to the pretty cobbled streets of St Helier, Jersey is known as the land of milk and honey. But for best friends Bea Rose (the local postwoman) and Grace Le Motte (who works in the island's only library) it becomes the frontline to everyday resistance when their beloved island is occupied by German forces in 1940.

It is Christmas Eve 1932, and the Kluger family are celebrating at home. Their only daughter Lexa is excited about her upcoming summer wedding to Moritz Weissmann, a promising young doctor. Lexa has many admirers, but her heart belongs to Moritz, who is initially welcomed by her parents and two brothers, Helmy and Erich. As the year progresses, Lexa enjoys skiing, swimming and going to parties with Moritz and her friends. But little by little Moritz is excluded from the pool, the library, and eventually his own home.

The Battle of Britain defined the future for Britain, Europe, and America. Bluebirds tells the story of four ordinary young men who are thrown together as Hitler plunges the European continent into its darkest hours. Andrew Francis and Gerry Donaldson were born on different sides of the Atlantic just before The Great War. Together with the mildly psychotic Bryan Hale, they fly Spitfires through the summer of 1940.

Berlin, 1943. As the Allied forces edge closer, the Third Reich tightens its grip on its people. For 18-year-old Susanna Göttmann, this means her adopted family including the man she loves, Leo, are at risk. Desperate to protect her loved ones any way she can, Susie accepts the help of an influential Nazi officer. But it comes at a terrible cost - she must abandon any hope of a future with Leo and enter the frightening world of the Nazi elite.

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.

The three sisters of Victory Walk in East London will face heartache and tears on the home front. As rationing, blackouts and bombs start to bite, life will change forever for the three sisters.

May 1945 – VE Day. After battling against the odds, the three friends are uncertain of their futures. With a new dawn, there are high hopes and boundless dreams. Can the Tobacco Girls unite once more to overcome life’s troubles and find the happiness they so deserve?

The only way Cilla van der Zee can survive the German occupation of the Netherlands is to do the unthinkable—become a spy for the Nazis in Britain. She soothes her conscience with a plan to abandon her mission and instead aid the Allies. Her scheme is thwarted when naval officer Lt. Lachlan Mackenzie finds her along the Scottish shore and turns her in to be executed. But perhaps she is more useful alive than dead.

It's February 1939. As the Fuhrer edges towards an invasion of Poland, total war looms in Europe. However in Krakow, 17-year-old Marie Karska's primary concern is the unexplained disappearance of her mother 15 years ago, and her father Dominik's unbreakable silence on the matter. Even his wife's name is a secret he guards closely. Dominik, a well-respected and innovative doctor at the local hospital, has devoted his life to caring for his only daughter.

Germany, late summer 1945. The war is over, but the country is in ruins. Millions of refugees and holocaust survivors strive to rebuild their lives in displaced persons camps. Millions of German soldiers and SS men are held captive in primitive conditions in open-air detention centres. Everywhere, civilians are desperate for food and shelter. No one admits to having voted Nazi, yet many are unrepentant. Adolf Hitler is said to have killed himself in his Berlin bunker. But no body was found - and many people believe he is alive.

All is not well at Castle's Café. Since the fatal shooting, customers have been staying away, and now Nellie finds herself in debt to the sinister Terence Carter. But when a deadly attack strikes close to home, these troubles pale into insignificance. Meanwhile, Jimmy Castle's relationship with family friend Reenie Turner has deepened, and in the aftermath of the attack that could so easily have killed them, they decide to get married. But the return of an old friend threatens to expose a long-held secret, leaving the wedding teetering on the brink of disaster.

When Adelaide Anson-Gravetty finds out her father is not the man who raised her, she is both shocked and intrigued. Determined to find out more about her new family, she travels to the convent of Our Lady of Mercy in France to meet her aunt, the Reverend Mother. But when France falls to the German army, Adelaide and the nuns are soon in the thick of a war that threatens both their beliefs and their lives. Collaborating with the Resistance, sheltering Jewish orphans, defying the rulings of Vichy France: these are dangerous activities in dangerous times.

In 1930s Berlin, dark days dawn under Hitler's Third Reich. For nineteen-year-old Sophia Alexander, life will never be the same. The daughter of a respected doctor, Sophia has always believed that her destiny is to look after others, and as the persecution of Jewish families begins, she joins a group of dissidents who are committed to helping them to safety.

Young, bookish Sylvia Beach knows there is no greater city in the world than Paris. But when she opens an English-language bookshop on the bohemian Left Bank, Sylvia can't yet know she is making history. Many leading writers of the day, from Ernest Hemingway to Gertrude Stein, consider Shakespeare and Company a second home. Here some of the most profound literary friendships blossom - and none more so than between James Joyce and Sylvia herself.

Holland, 1944: Undercover British agent Nancy Callaghan has been given her toughest case yet. A key member of the Dutch resistance has been captured, and Nancy must play the role of a wealthy Nazi to win over a notorious SS officer, Detlef Keller, and gain crucial information. But as Nancy infiltrates the Dutch SS, she finds herself catching the eye of an even more senior member of the Party. Is Nancy in too deep, or can Tom reach her before she gets caught?

France, 1942: With Europe struggling under German occupation, Sophie Bélanger, grieving the deaths of her brother, fiancé and friends, is no longer prepared to stand on the sidelines. Risking everything, she becomes increasingly involved in helping to save those on the run – even though that means persuading Jewish parents to hand over their children, in the desperate hope of saving their lives. When she is forced to flee to the non-occupied zone, her medical skills take her to the French camp of Rivesaltes, where she cares for the injured and unwell – until one day her luck runs out.

Poland, 1944 When twelve-year-old Martha and her little sister Johanna are snatched while out shopping for food and pushed into an army truck with a swastika on the door, they are heartbroken. Terrified they will never see their mother again, the little girls cling to each other as the truck full of stolen children rumbles through the countryside.

London, 1942. Despite the raging war, spirited 18-year-old Nellie Morris lives a quiet life in the tight-knit East End community of Bethnal Green. Her family and friends all tease that she will marry air raid warden Billy, the boy next door who’s always been sweet on her. The arrival of Ray, a handsome American airman stationed nearby, causes Nellie to question everything she thought she knew about her future. Nellie’s newfound happiness is short-lived when a tragic accident occurs during an air raid.

Plymouth, 1941. As sirens blare all around, the Shawbrook family take refuge in a packed shelter. Bombs have already begun to fall through the night sky when they realise their infant son, Freddie, has been forgotten in the rush, left to sleep in his crib. Terrified, Vera, his young mother, races to find him and bring him to safety. The next morning, air raid warden David Shawbrook returns from his watch to find the shelter pulverised, and his family seemingly all dead. Dirty footprints inside their home betray the looters who have rifled through the house.