Book picks similar to
The Crew by Margaret Mayhew
historical-fiction
wwii
margaret-mayhew
20th-century
The Girl from Cobb Street
Merryn Allingham - 2015
Forging her own way in the world, determined Daisy struggles to make ends meet as the country finds itself on the brink of the Second World War.Her fortunes change when she finds solace in the arms of Gerald Mortimer, a handsome cavalry subaltern in the Indian army. Finally, Daisy has found someone to love of her very own. But soon she discovers she’s pregnant and fate was never going to give her an easy ride.Gerald is not all he claims to be and, as he leads her along a path of danger and scandal, Daisy must find the strength within herself to get through her darkest hour.The Daisy’s War trilogyThe Girl from Cobb Street – Book 1The Nurse’s War – Book 2Daisy’s Long Road Home – Book 3Each story in the Daisy’s War series can be read and enjoyed as a standalone story – or as part of this compelling trilogy charting the fortunes of Daisy Driscoll.
The Keeper of Secrets
Julie Thomas - 2011
A family torn apart. A decision that could change everything.Berlin, 1939. Fourteen year old Simon Horowitz is awash in a world of music. His family owns a superb collection of instruments and at its heart is his father's 1742 Guarneri de Gesu violin. But all is lost when the Nazis march across Europe and Simon and his father and brother are sent to Dachau. Amid unimaginable cruelty and death, Simon finds kindness from an unexpected corner, and a chance to pick up a violin again and a chance to live.In the present day, orchestra conductor Rafael Gomez has seen much in his time on the world's stage, but he finds himself oddly inspired by the playing of an aspiring violin virtuoso, a fantastic talent who is only just fourteen. Then the boy, Daniel Horowitz, suddenly refuses to play another note, and Rafael knows he'll do anything he can to change that. When he learns the boy's family once owned a precious violin, believed to have been lost forever, Rafael thinks he might know exactly how to get Daniel playing again. In taking on the task he discovers a family story like no other that winds from World War II and Communist Russia all the way to Rafael's very own stage.
Goodnight from London
Jennifer Robson - 2017
She jumps at the chance, for it's an opportunity not only to prove herself, but also to start fresh in a city and country that know nothing of her humble origins. But life in besieged Britain tests Ruby in ways she never imagined.Although most of Ruby's new colleagues welcome her, a few resent her presence, not only as an American but also as a woman. She is just beginning to find her feet, to feel at home in a country that is so familiar yet so foreign, when the bombs begin to fall. As the nightly horror of the Blitz stretches unbroken into weeks and months, Ruby must set aside her determination to remain an objective observer. When she loses everything but her life, and must depend upon the kindness of strangers, she learns for the first time the depth and measure of true friendship—and what it is to love a man who is burdened by secrets that aren’t his to share.Goodnight from London, inspired in part by the wartime experiences of the author’s own grandmother, is a captivating, heartfelt, and historically immersive story that readers are sure to embrace.
Convoy of War
Philip McCutchan - 1987
They’re bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia, seeking much-needed supplies — armour, ammunition, foodstuffs — as well as Canadian troops to reinforce the battle-weary British army. Leading the convoy is Commodore John Mason Kemp, mobilized from the liners for war service with the Royal Navy. The commodore has weathered countless journeys at sea, but this is war. Decisions often have to be made split-second and can mean lives saved or lost. Amid sudden tempests and the constant threat of German U-boat attacks, Kemp also faces the challenges of an unlikely assortment of people aboard a war-time ship: His young assistant, eager to prove himself but with a lot to learn. The ship’s doctor, often too drunk to attend to the wounded. The second steward, whose questionable morals harm more than just himself. As the convoy picks its way through submarine-infested waters, this journey will prove to be the commodore’s most difficult yet. Convoy of War is a page-turning naval thriller, and a rich depiction of war at sea. Praise for Philip McCutchan: “McCutchan is to be congratulated...” — Houston Post "The military-series genre hasn't a finer craftsman than McCutchan." — Publishers Weekly "His character conflicts are well organised." — Daily Telegraph 'A gripping page-turner.' - Tom Kasey, best-selling author of 'Trade-Off.' Philip McCutchan grew up in the naval atmosphere of Portsmouth Dockyard and developed a lifetime's interest in the sea. Military history was an early interest of his, resulting in several fiction books about the British Army and its campaigns, especially in the last 150 years. He served throughout WW II in a variety of ships, including the cruiser Vindictive, the ocean boarding vessel Largs, and the escort carrier Ravager, ending the war as a lieutenant, RNVR. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.
The Caxley Chronicles
Miss Read - 1999
The first Caxley tale, The Market Square, introduces the deep-rooted camaraderie of Septimus Howard and Bender North, whose friendship survives misunderstandings, the tragedy of war, and the bitterness of loss. The story of their families continues through the generations. The second tale, The Howards of Caxley, tells of Edward Howard, grandson to them both. Edward flies for the Royal Air Force Reserve as England prepares for another war -- and Caxley braces itself for overwhelming changes.
The Evacuee Christmas
Katie King - 2017
In No 5 Jubilee Street, Bermondsey, ten-year-old Connie is determined to show her parents that she’s a brave girl and can look after her twin brother, Jessie. She won’t cry, not while anyone’s watching.In the crisp Yorkshire Dales, Connie and Jessie are billeted to a rambling vicarage. Kindly but chaotic, Reverend Braithwaite is determined to keep his London charges on the straight and narrow, but the twins soon find adventures of their own. As autumn turns to winter, Connie’s dearest wish is that war will end and they will be home for Christmas. But this Christmas Eve there will be an unexpected arrival…
The Taster
V.S. Alexander - 2018
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In early 1943, Magda Ritter's parents send her to relatives in Bavaria, hoping to keep her safe from the Allied bombs strafing Berlin. Young German women are expected to do their duty--working for the Reich or marrying to produce strong, healthy children. After an interview with the civil service, Magda is assigned to the Berghof, Hitler's mountain retreat. Only after weeks of training does she learn her assignment: she will be one of several young women tasting the Fuhrer's food, offering herself in sacrifice to keep him from being poisoned.Perched high in the Bavarian Alps, the Berghof seems worlds away from the realities of battle. Though terrified at first, Magda gradually becomes used to her dangerous occupation--though she knows better than to voice her misgivings about the war. But her love for a conspirator within the SS, and her growing awareness of the Reich's atrocities, draw Magda into a plot that will test her wits and loyalty in a quest for safety, freedom, and ultimately, vengeance.Vividly written and ambitious in scope, The Taster examines the harrowing moral dilemmas of war in an emotional story filled with acts of extraordinary courage.
Restless
William Boyd - 2006
Sally Gilmartin is a respectable English widow living in picturesque Cotswold village; Eva Delectorskaya was a rigorously trained World War II spy, a woman who carried fake passports and retreated to secret safe houses, a woman taught to lie and deceive, and above all, to never trust anyone.Three decades later the secrets of Sally’s past still haunt her. Someone is trying to kill her and at last she has decided to trust Ruth with her story. Ruth, meanwhile, is struggling to make sense of her own life as a young single mother with an unfinished graduate degree and escalating dependence on alcohol. She is drawn deeper and deeper into the astonishing events of her mother’s past—the mysterious death of Eva’s beloved brother, her work in New York City manipulating the press in order to shift public sentiment toward American involvement in the war, and her dangerous romantic entanglement. Now Sally wants to find the man who recruited her for the secret service, and she needs Ruth’s help.Restless is a brilliant espionage book and a vivid portrait of the life of a female spy. Full of tension and drama, and based on a remarkable chapter of Anglo-American history, this is fiction at its finest.
The Lieutenant's Nurse
Sara Ackerman - 2019
She’s never even seen the ocean before, but Eva Cassidy has her reasons for making the crossing to Hawaii, and they run a lot deeper than escaping a harsh Michigan winter. Newly enlisted as an Army Corps nurse, Eva is stunned by the splendor she experiences aboard the steamship SS Lurline; even more so by Lt. Clark Spencer, a man she is drawn to but who clearly has secrets of his own. But Eva’s past—and the future she’s trying to create—means that she’s not free to follow her heart. Clark is a navy intelligence officer, and he warns her that the United States won’t be able to hold off joining the war for long, but nothing can prepare them for the surprise attack that will change the world they know.In the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Eva and her fellow nurses band together for the immense duty of keeping the American wounded alive. And the danger that finds Eva threatens everything she holds dear. Amid the chaos and heartbreak, Eva will have to decide whom to trust and how far she will go to protect those she loves.Set in the vibrant tropical surroundings of the Pacific, The Lieutenant’s Nurse is an evocative, emotional WWII story of love, friendship and the resilient spirit of the heroic nurses of Pearl Harbor.
The Madonnas of Leningrad
Debra Dean - 2006
And while the elderly Russian woman cannot hold on to fresh memories—the details of her grown children's lives, the approaching wedding of her grandchild—her distant past is preserved: vivid images that rise unbidden of her youth in war-torn Leningrad.In the fall of 1941, the German army approached the outskirts of Leningrad, signaling the beginning of what would become a long and torturous siege. During the ensuing months, the city's inhabitants would brave starvation and the bitter cold, all while fending off the constant German onslaught. Marina, then a tour guide at the Hermitage Museum, along with other staff members, was instructed to take down the museum's priceless masterpieces for safekeeping, yet leave the frames hanging empty on the walls—a symbol of the artworks' eventual return. To hold on to sanity when the Luftwaffe's bombs began to fall, she burned to memory, brushstroke by brushstroke, these exquisite artworks: the nude figures of women, the angels, the serene Madonnas that had so shortly before gazed down upon her. She used them to furnish a "memory palace," a personal Hermitage in her mind to which she retreated to escape terror, hunger, and encroaching death. A refuge that would stay buried deep within her, until she needed it once more. . . .
The Orphan of Salt Winds
Elizabeth Brooks - 2018
Ten-year-old Virginia Wrathmell arrives at Salt Winds, a secluded house on the edge of a marsh, to meet her adoptive parents—practical, dependable Clem and glamorous, mercurial Lorna. The marsh, with its deceptive tides, is a beautiful but threatening place. Virginia’s new parents’ marriage is full of secrets and tensions she doesn’t quite understand, and their wealthy neighbor, Max Deering, drops by too often, taking an unwholesome interest in the family’s affairs. Only Clem offers a true sense of home. War feels far away among the birds and shifting sands—until the day a German fighter plane crashes into the marsh, and Clem ventures out to rescue the airman. What happens next sets into motion a crime so devastating it will haunt Virginia for the rest of her life. Seventy-five years later, she finds herself drawn back to the marsh, and to a teenage girl who appears there, nearly frozen and burdened by her own secrets. In her, Virginia might have a chance at retribution and a way to right a grave mistake she made as a child. Elizabeth Brooks’s gripping debut mirrors its marshy landscape—full of twists and turns and moored in a tangle of family secrets. A gothic, psychological mystery and atmospheric coming-of-age story, The Orphan of Salt Winds is the portrait of a woman haunted by the place she calls home.
The Race for Paris
Meg Waite Clayton - 2015
To cover the fighting in France, Jane, a reporter for the Nashville Banner, and Liv, an Associated Press photographer, have already had to endure enormous danger and frustrating obstacles—including strict military regulations limiting what women correspondents can do. Even so, Liv wants more. Encouraged by her husband, the editor of a New York newspaper, she’s determined to be the first photographer to reach Paris with the Allies, and capture its freedom from the Nazis.However, her Commanding Officer has other ideas about the role of women in the press corps. To fulfill her ambitions, Liv must go AWOL. She persuades Jane to join her, and the two women find a guardian angel in Fletcher, a British military photographer who reluctantly agrees to escort them. As they race for Paris across the perilous French countryside, Liv, Jane, and Fletcher forge an indelible emotional bond that will transform them and reverberate long after the war is over. Based on daring, real-life female reporters on the front lines of history like Margaret Bourke-White, Lee Miller, and Martha Gellhorn—and with cameos by other famous faces of the time—The Race for Paris is an absorbing, atmospheric saga full of drama, adventure, and passion. Combining riveting storytelling with expert literary craftsmanship and thorough research, Meg Waite Clayton crafts a compelling, resonant read.
The Invisible Bridge
Julie Orringer - 2010
Andras Lévi, a Hungarian-Jewish architecture student, arrives from Budapest with a scholarship, a single suitcase, and a mysterious letter he promised to deliver. But when he falls into a complicated relationship with the letter's recipient, he becomes privy to a secret that will alter the course of his—and his family’s—history. From the small Hungarian town of Konyár to the grand opera houses of Budapest and Paris, from the despair of Carpathian winter to an unimaginable life in labor camps, The Invisible Bridge tells the story of a family shattered and remade in history’s darkest hour.
The Road to Liberation: Trials and Triumphs of WWII
Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger - 2020
Only personal bravery and self-sacrifice will tip the scales when the world needs it most.Read about the heroic act of a long-term prisoner, an RAF squadron leader on the run in France, a Filipino family fleeing their home, a small child finding unexpected friends amidst the cruelty of the concentration camps, a shipwrecked woman captured by the enemy, and a young Jewish girl in a desperate plan to escape the Gestapo.2020 marks 75 years since the world celebrated the end of WWII. These ten books will transport you across countries and continents during the final days, revealing the high price of freedom—and why it is still so necessary to “never forget”.Included books are:Stolen Childhood by Marion KummerowThe Aftermath by Ellie MidwoodToo Many Wolves in the Local Woods by Marina OsipovaLiberation Berlin by JJ TonerMagda’s Mark by Chrystyna Lucyk-BergerBuy now and indulge in stories filled with suspense, danger, heartbreak, and redemption.
Trouble in Paradise
Pip Granger - 2004
The end to hostilities will bring her violent husband Charlie home. It also sets off a chain of events that brings more strife and destruction to the people of Paradise Gardens, Hackney - including Zeldas squabbling family and the mysterious local healer, Zinnia Makepeace - than did the Blitz.That's not all. A new boss is making Zelda's life difficult. Zelda's nephew, Tony, is hanging around Brian Hole, a one-boy crime wave and only child of Ma Hole, leader of the local spivs.But Tony can sing - he has, in fact, the voice of an angel - and Miss Makepeace knows a voice coach in Soho. The people Zelda meets there change her life. Bert and Maggie Featherby offer her a way out of Hackney and her failed marriage, while the local hood, Maltese Joe, decides to take on Ma Hole.