A Girl Called Thursday


Lilian Harry - 2002
    It was meant to be a message of hope for the future, but they could not foresee that by the time Thursday celebrated her 21st birthday, Britain would once again be at war with Germany. Thursday is determined to help in the war effort and volunteers as a Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse. The realities of war are brought home to her when the casualties begin to arrive from Dunkirk, and Thursday begins to understand the true meaning of courage. While experiencing all the natural hopes and dreams of any young woman, finding pleasure and joy as well as sorrow in her work, Thursday is given her own opportunity to show strength and bravery in the face of war—and find a lasting love.

Land Girls


Angela Huth - 1994
    Soon after the Battle of Britain, three young women - Prue, an apprentice hairdresser, Stella, giddily in love, and Agatha, a Cambridge graduate - are catapulted from their contrasting worlds and find themselves sharing a dormitory together in the depths of the West Country as land girls.

The Farmer's Daughter


Mary Nichols - 2016
    Since her father's stroke, Jean has been trying to run her parents' small farm almost single-handedly and is in desperate need of help. Karl, a German prisoner of war captured when the Allies invade France in 1944, turns out to be just what she needs. He is polite, hardworking and homesick, but is he more than that? Fraternisation between the prisoners and the local population is forbidden, but as the weeks and months pass, Jean and Karl become closer - much to the dismay of Jean's family and Karl's compatriots. Can their love have a future when it seems every hand is against them?

Fair Stood the Wind for France


H.E. Bates - 1944
    End of mission. The great bomber had been giving the crew trouble since leaving Italy. Finally over occupied France, it settles like a weary, wounded eagle on what seemed to Franklin a hard, smooth field. The five members of the crew were welded by the crash into a single whole, one tiny forged weapon in the vast territory of the enemy--weak and ineffectual--yet confident as only men can be whose minds are free. Francoise's family accepted them calmly. In Francoise it was faith, a simple piety so humble, so complete that all the mechanized myrmidons of the Reich could not touch her spirit. In her father it was stubbornness, that glorious pigheadedness of the French peasant who won't be pushed around. In her grandmother it was a kinship with the infinite. Having survived two wars, she remained unmoved by the swaggering vainglory of the Nazi. And in Pierre it was hatred, a hatred so deep that only rarely did it flash on the surface. It was natural that Francoise should be so strongly drawn to Franklin, the pilot. His gentle strength, his sensitive mind, the careful restrained warmth of his emotion found a calm, sure response in the simple innocence and candor of the girl. All through the delirious pain of his torn, wounded arm, Franklin felt the girl's presence like a cool, comforting hand. In the end it was her courage and, above all, her faith which saved him--saved him--not only from the enemy but from himself.

Ben Retallick


E.V. Thompson - 1980
    Ben Retallick has grown to sturdy manhood among the miners and fishermen, through the hard and hungry years when blood was often the price of bread. When cruel fate steals away Jesse, his love, Ben searches to find her, caring only for the day he'll make her his wife.

Conner Street's War


Harry Bowling - 1988
    Corner shops nestle beside the tiny terraced houses and two minutes away is the lively Tower Road market, where it is said, if you can't buy something then it's not made. Once World War Two breaks out, however, life in Conner Street changes dramatically - for ever...

Into the Fire


Alexander Fullerton - 1995
    Their average life expectancy is six weeks.But Rosie is brighter than most, well-aware of the consequences of a second’s carelessness, or bad luck, or treachery. Or a fellow agent crumbling under torture, naming names.Her brief is to set up a new network in Rouen, where the old one has been blown and an agent is suspected of betrayal. If she gets there, that is. Landing from a gunboat on the Brittany coast, she must to travel to Paris – carrying forged papers, a radio transceiver and more than a million francs in cash… Frighteningly realistic, unbearably exciting, the Rosie Ewing Spy Thrillers are perfect for fans of Philip Kerr, Ian Fleming and John Le Carré. ‘You don’t read a novel by Alexander Fullerton. You live it.’ South Wales Echo

Hullo Russia, Goodbye England


Derek Robinson - 2008
    and qualifies to fly the Vulcan bomber. Piloting a Vulcan is an unforgettable experience: no other aircraft comes close to matching its all-round performance. And as bombers go, it's drop-dead gorgeous.But there's a catch. The Vulcan has only one role: to make a second strike. To act in retaliation for a Russian nuclear attack. Silk knows that knows that if he ever flies his Vulcan in anger, he'll be flying from a smoking wasteland, a Britain obliterated. But in the mad world of Mutually Assured Destruction, the Vulcan is the last--the only--deterrent.Derek Robinson returns with another rip-roaring, gung-ho R.A.F. adventure, one that exposes and confronts the brinkmanship and saber-rattling of the Cold War Era.

The Caves of San Pietro


Susan Gayle - 2021
    An intriguing and earnest... war tale." –Kirkus ReviewsAfter he and his buddy survive the bloody landing on the beaches of Salerno, Frank Moster is more determined than ever to play a part in liberating his birth parents' homeland from the Nazi scourge. What he doesn't expect is that he'll become personally involved with an Italian family whose lives are being ravaged, first by the German occupation and now by the brutal fighting and deadly bombings on the heels of the Allied invasion - or that, for the second time in his life, he'll come face to face with the heartache and trauma of being orphaned at a very young age.When all three of these forces collide at the Battle of San Pietro, lives will be changed forever and unbreakable bonds will be forged between families half a world apart.

Hot Water Man


Deborah Moggach - 1984
    Among the ex-pats already there is straight-talking Duke Hanson, whose all-American values cannot prevent him falling, then sinking, helplessly in love with a sophisticated Pakistani girl. In the ensuing tangle of Anglo-American-Oriental relations, the strangest things for those who have come out East are revealed in the very people with whom they arrived…

Cast the First Stone: A stunning wartime story


Angela Arney - 1992
    It was done at last. They were married. The wedding took place in Naples, a city of burning rubble and poverty – for the time was 1944 and the Germans were in retreat. Thousands of Italians were starving and prepared to do anything to survive. Liana was more determined than most, not only to survive, but to get out of the hell-hole that Naples had become. She had lied, cheated, played provocative games, and now stood in a crumbling church before an emaciated priest. Beside her stood Nicholas Hamilton-Howard, Earl of Wessex, a young English officer who was totally bewitched by the exquisite Italian girl. Even during the service she was terrified – terrified that someone would reveal the truth about her, but when the final blessing was given she knew she was safe and she vowed to devote her life to making Nicholas happy, even though she did not love him – even though their life together was to be built on lies and deception… Angela Arney was born in Hampshire, where she still lives with her husband. She has been a teacher, a hospital administrator and a cabaret singer. The author of a number of romances, Cast the First Stone is her first full-length novel.

Sea of Wolves


Philip K. Allan - 2020
    Across the stormy North Atlantic battle rages between wolfpacks of U-boats and escort ships fighting to protect the Allies’ vital convoys. Meanwhile teams of codebreakers at Bletchley Park struggle to penetrate the German Navy’s Top-Secret Dolphin code, and unlock the flow of vital intelligence that will swing the battle in the Allies favour.Sea of Wolves plots the lives of three people caught up in the centre of the battle. Vera Baldwin, a young crossword-enthusiast, lifted from her quiet suburban life and thrown into the middle of the greatest codebreaking effort the world has seen. Otto Stuckmann, the rookie commander of U70, a German naval veteran struggling with the ceaseless demands being placed on him. Leonard Cole, the newly appointed first lieutenant of HMS Protea and a man with unfinished business to resolve.Each is unknown to the others as their fates spiral around each other, touching and twisting towards a final encounter that will change their lives forever.

Empire of the Sun


J.G. Ballard - 1984
    To survive, he must find a deep strength greater than all the events that surround him.Shanghai, 1941 — a city aflame from the fateful torch of Pearl Harbor. In streets full of chaos and corpses, a young British boy searches in vain for his parents. Imprisoned in a Japanese concentration camp, he is witness to the fierce white flash of Nagasaki, as the bomb bellows the end of the war...and the dawn of a blighted world.Ballard's enduring novel of war and deprivation, internment camps and death marches, and starvation and survival is an honest coming-of-age tale set in a world thrown utterly out of joint.

For Such a Time


Elyse Larson - 2000
    Lesser known, perhaps, but equally dramatic were the roles that women played in the conflict, both as support from home and as part of the fight near the front lines.For Such a Time, the first novel in Elyse Larson’s WOMEN OF VALOR series explores the lives of two cousins—one French, the other American—who find the courage to face danger and betrayal in occupied France during at the height of the war.Giselle Munier and Jean Thornton are more like sisters than cousins, having spent many summers together through their parents’ travels. But with the outbreak of World War II, both women’s lives take a dramatic turn.Jean joins the American Red Cross, assigned to a sprawling military hospital in Wales. Giselle, active in the French Resistance, has been betrayed and arrested by the Nazis. Hearing of her cousin’s plight, Jean knows she must try to rescue her cousin, no matter how ill-advised the mission seems. Both women will learn far more than they ever imagined about courage, trust, and forgiveness before their harrowing experience is over.rnton decides to rescue her beloved relative, no matter the cost. Original.

Partisan


Christopher Nicole - 2001
    The staff at the British Embassy make hasty plans to leave the country, but one of the military attachés, Captain Tony Davis, is separated from his comrades. Together with a motley crew of refugees, Davis escapes into the mountains of the west and begins a breathtaking series of adventures as he encounters the remnants of the Serbian army, the dreaded Ustase terrorists and, eventually, the Partisans, led by Josip Broz, alias Tito.He rapidly becomes a legend, both for his fighting ability and his capacity for survival, but his personal life is bedevilled by the rivalry between two women: earthy Croat Elena and the delicate French journalist Sandrine.Partisan is an exciting tale of adventure and romance, set against the backdrop of the Second World War.