World War Ii Romance

The last time Valerie was in Paris, she was three years old, running from the Nazis, away from the only home she had ever known. Now as a young woman all alone in the world, Valerie must return to Paris, to the bookshop and her sole surviving relative, her grandfather Vincent, the only person who knows the truth about what happened to her parents. As she gets to know grumpy, taciturn Vincent again, she hears a tragic story of Nazi-occupied Paris, a doomed love affair, and a mother willing to sacrifice everything for her beloved daughter.  

Italy, 1937. In a tiny village in rural Lombardy, Graziella Ponti is born into a loving family. Though they are not rich and life is full of challenges, Graziella and her family are content and safe, surrounded by the tightly knit community of Pieve Santa Clara. But when the shadow of World War Two falls across the village with the arrival of Nazi soldiers, nothing in young Graziella’s life will ever be the same again.

Liverpool, 1939. Bella Rogers thought her life was just starting; she can’t wait to get married to her childhood sweetheart, Bobby. But when war is declared and Bobby is called up, his letters stop, leaving Bella heartbroken and alone. Then her family is torn apart by tragedy when her angelic 5-year-old sister dies from a terrible illness. They can barely afford a funeral, but the church is packed with the entire community, devastated for their loss. Grieving for her sister and lost love, Bella finds a job at the Bryant and May factory, making matches.

In 1944, American naval officer Lt. Wyatt Paxton arrives in London to prepare for the Allied invasion of France. He works closely with Dorothy Fairfax, a "Wren" in the Women's Royal Naval Service. Dorothy pieces together reconnaissance photographs with thousands of holiday snapshots of France - including those of her own family's summer home - in order to create accurate maps of Normandy. Maps that Wyatt will turn into naval bombardment plans. As the two spend concentrated time together in the pressure cooker of war, their deepening friendship threatens to turn to love.

The ideal lady wears lace, speaks quietly, and never - under any circumstances - fixes an automobile. But Gwyn Ruthers has never cared two snaps about being the ideal lady. With the war to end all wars exploding across the English Channel, she leaves behind her restrictive life as a chauffer's daughter to serve in an all-female ambulance unit in France. She's not about to let her social status or gender prevent her from serving her country. Not even a handsome captain can distract her from her mission. Most of the time.

On the day after Halloween, in the year 1327, four children slip away from the cathedral city of Kingsbridge. They are a thief, a bully, a boy genius, and a girl who wants to be a doctor. In the forest they see two men killed. As adults, their lives will be braided together by ambition, love, greed and revenge. They will see prosperity and famine, plague and war.

In the final days of World War II, Catherine Hastings meets the man she wants to marry. Flight surgeon Jonathan Brandon isn't just handsome - he's everything Catherine could hope for in her betrothed. But her dream of a happily ever after is shattered when Jonnie vanishes before their wedding, leaving Catherine bereft, broken-hearted, and with a lifetime of unanswered questions.

Numbed by grief and harboring shameful secrets, Lt. Adler Paxton ships to England with the US 357th Fighter Group in 1943. Determined to become an ace pilot, Adler battles the German Luftwaffe in treacherous dogfights in the skies over France. Violet Lindstrom wanted to be a missionary, but for now she serves in the American Red Cross, where she arranges entertainment for the men of the 357th in the Aeroclub on base. Drawn to the mysterious Adler, she enlists his help with her work and urges him to reconnect with his family after a long estrangement.

1940. With the Germans about to enter Paris, Claire Bouchard flees France for England. Two years later she is recruited by the Special Operations Executive and sent back into occupied France to work alongside the Resistance. Working undercover as a teacher in Brittany, Claire accidentally befriends the wife of the German Commandant of Rennes, and the blossoming friendship is about to become a dangerous mission. Claire begins a double life as a Gestapo Commandant’s mistress to retrieve information, but ghosts from her past make the deception more painful than she could have imagined.

Greece, 1944: After Nefeli loses her husband during the Italian invasion of Greece in 1940, she ekes out a meager living from her Blue Dolphin taverna with the help of her eight-year-old-daughter, Georgia; their small garden; and Agamemnon the mule. Four of Nefeli's close friends, who belong to the Greek Resistance, ask her to hide a cache of weapons, placing her in mortal danger from the enemy. When the Resistance blows up a German naval vessel filled with troops, three of them are killed, and the Germans start to make regular visits to the island. 

Peter Blunden, a New Zealand soldier captured in Crete, jumps from a train and escapes from his Nazi captors. He is taken into a safe house by Mrs. Tasoula, a dressmaker and a member of the Greek resistance movement. She employs several young dressmakers including Thalia Christidou, who wonders why the door to a room off the living room is always locked. This arrangement works well for some time, but the Germans are everywhere and there is mounting concern that the men will be discovered. Thalia sees them by accident, and soon Peter and Thalia become close.

Nina Argenta doesn’t want the traditional life of a rural Italian woman. The daughter of a strong-willed midwife, she is determined to define her own destiny. But when her brother emigrates to America, she promises her mother to never leave. When childhood friend Pietro Pante briefly returns to their mountain town, passion between them ignites while Mussolini forces political tensions to rise. Just as their romance deepens, Pietro must leave again for work in the coal mines of America. Nina is torn between joining him and her commitment to Italy and her mother. 

The present: Emilie de la Martiniéres has always fought against her aristocratic background, but after the death of her glamorous, distant mother, she finds herself alone in the world and sole inheritor of her grand childhood home in the south of France. An old notebook of poems leads her in search of the mysterious and beautiful Sophia, whose tragic love affair changed the course of her family history.

Through years of war and devastation, Tatiana and Alexander suffered the worst the twentieth century had to offer. Miraculously reunited in America, they now have a beautiful son, Anthony, the gift of a love strong enough to survive the most terrible upheavals. Though they are still young, the ordeals they endured have changed them-and after living apart in a world laid waste, they must now find a way to live together in postwar America.

Georgian mansion Wharton Park was a place of childhood solace for Julia Forrester, spending summers in the Norfolk countryside with her beloved grandfather. So after tragedy strikes, she finds herself seeking comfort at Wharton and the allure of its hothouse, once home to exotic flowers from all corners of the globe but now lying abandoned. There she meets the new owner, the charming and magnetic Kit Crawford, whose own past is shrouded in sadness and mystery.

Paullina Simons's internationally bestselling blockbuster The Bronze Horseman told the heart-soaring tale of a young Russian woman's transcendent love affair with a Red Army soldier during the siege of Leningrad in the dark days of World War Two. The epic story continues in Tatiana and Alexander—a novel of the enduring power of love and commitment against the devastating forces of war and the equally dangerous forces of keeping the peace. A sweeping, intensely compelling romantic historical saga, Tatiana and Alexander is a Russian Thorn Birds and a truly unforgettable listening experience.

Saffron grows up on a sprawling Kenyan estate, under the watchful eye of her father, prominent businessman and distinguished war veteran Leon Courtney. Her childhood is idyllic, until a family tragedy forces her to grow up much faster than necessary. As she grows into a spirited teenager, her thirst for knowledge and adventure leads her to England, where she finds herself inevitably drawn into the heart of the gathering storm in the lead-up to World War II.

Uncovering a diabolical Nazi plot, Marge Emerson is secretly reassigned to a medical post in France. There she meets a conscientious objector and finds his outspoken belief in God a challenge to her own fragile faith. When David shares his desire to return to Europe after the war and build an orphanage for Germany's homeless children, Marge is drawn to this selfless, compassionate man.

After renowned London fashion designer Cressida Westcott loses both her home and her design house in the Blitz, she has nowhere to go but the family manor house she fled decades ago. She arrives with nothing but the clothes she stands in, at a loss as to how to rebuild her business from a quaint country village. Before long, Cressida’s spirit and ambition galvanises the village group into action, and they find themselves mending wedding dresses not only for local brides, but for brides across the country.

In 1944, blonde and blue-eyed Jewess Hadassah Benjamin feels abandoned by God when she is saved from a firing squad only to be handed over to a new enemy. Pressed into service by SS Kommandant Colonel Aric von Schmidt at the transit camp of Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia, she is able to hide behind the false identity of Stella Muller. However, in order to survive and maintain her cover as Aric's secretary, she is forced to stand by as her own people are sent to Auschwitz.