Book picks similar to
The Postmistress by Maggie Sullivan


historical-fiction
netgalley
fiction
wwii

The Last Correspondent


Soraya M. Lane - 2020
    But having risked everything to write, she refuses to be silenced and leaps at the chance to become a correspondent in war-torn France.Already entrenched in the thoroughly male arena of war reporting is feisty American photojournalist Danni Bradford. Together with her best friend and partner, Andy, she is determined to cover the events unfolding in Normandy. And to discover the whereabouts of Andy’s flighty sister, Vogue model Chloe, who has followed a lover into the French Resistance.When trailblazing efforts turn to tragedy, Danni, Ella and Chloe are drawn together, and soon form a formidable team. Each woman is determined to follow her dreams ‘no matter what’, and to make her voice heard over the noise of war.Europe is a perilous place, with danger at every turn. They’ll need to rely on each other if they are to get their stories back, and themselves out alive. Will the adventure and love they find be worth the journey of their lives?

The Forbidden Promise


Lorna Cook - 2020
    Until the night of Constance’s twenty-first birthday, when she’s the only person to see a Spitfire crash into the loch. Constance has been longing for adventure – but when she promises to keep the pilot hidden, what will it cost her?2020:Kate arrives in the Highlands to turn Invermoray into a luxury bed-and-breakfast, only to find that the estate is more troubled than she’d imagined. But when Kate discovers the house has a murky history, with Constance McLay’s name struck from its records, she knows she can’t leave until the mystery is solved…How will one promise change the fate of two women, decades apart?

Our Last Letter


Liz Trenow - 2020
    Your letters are a lifeline and there is something I need to tell you. Please write, please, please.1937, England. Kathleen Motts, with her flame-red curls and gift for geometry, grew up just across the water from the secretive RAF base, Bawdsey Manor, on the bleak and beautiful east coast. When the stars overhead turn red as warplanes surge towards her home, Kath is desperate to do her bit, enlisting as one of the first female radar operators, helping to keep the brave pilots safe in troubled skies.Vikram Mackensie is quiet, exceptional at maths and music, and always the outsider. When he’s recruited for a top-secret war project at Bawdsey Manor, Vic’s chance to belong has arrived at last. He may only be half-British, but he vows to help the country he loves.From their first meeting on windy cliffs above a rocky beach, Kath arrives like a blaze of warmth into Vic’s grey life and turns the colour back on. As the war intensifies, so do Kath and Vic’s feelings for each other. They may have grown up on different sides of the world – but if the war can’t keep them apart, nothing will.But fate intervenes when Vic is posted to America, and Kath is left heartbroken and alone. As the silence between them grows, so does the secret that Kath is holding… As the sky falls around Kath, will she ever have more than one last letter?A heartbreaking and gripping novel, Our Last Letter shows that even in humanity’s darkest moments, light and love will find a way.

The Secret Letter


Debbie Rix - 2019
     Germany, 1939: Thirteen-year-old Magda is devastated by the loss of her best friend, shy and gentle Lotte, cruelly snatched from her and sent to a concentration camp – the Star of David sewn on her faded, brown coat. As the Nazi’s power takes hold, Magda realizes she’s not like the other girls in her village - she hates the fanatical new rules of the Hitler Youth. So Magda secretly joins The White Rose movement and begins to rebel against the oppressive, frightening world around her. But when an English RAF pilot lands in a field near Magda’s home she is faced with an impossible choice: to risk the lives of her family or to save a stranger and make a difference in the war she desperately wants to end. England, 1939: Fifteen-year-old Imogen is torn from her family and evacuated to the Lake District, a haven of safety away from the war raging across Europe. All she has to connect her to the bombs and the battles are the letters she writes to her loved ones. Little does she know, on the other side of the enemy line, her fate rests on the actions of one girl who will change her life forever…

Finding Home


Kate Field - 2021
    She’s jobless, homeless and living in her car… but with a history like hers she knows she has a huge amount to be grateful for.Meet Beatrice and William Howard: Bill and Bea to you. The heads of the Howard family and owners of Venhallow Hall, a sprawling seaside Devonshire estate… stranded in a layby five hours from home the night before their niece’s wedding.When fate brings the trio together, Mim doesn’t think twice before offering to drive the affable older couple home. It’s not like she has anywhere else to be. But as the car pulls into the picturesque village of Littlemead, Mim has no idea how her life is about to change…An uplifting story of found family and true love perfect for fans of Fern Britton and Veronica Henry.

A Sister’s Courage


Molly Green - 2019
    Her hero, Doug Williams, teaches her to fly when she is just 17. With her pilot’s license it seems as though the sky’s the limit for Raine … until war breaks out.Raine knows that her place is not at home and she is determined to assist the war effort by doing what she loves, but the Air Transport Auxiliary aren’t taking women. Though at the height of the war, they need her help, and Raine is offered the opportunity to join the force and prove she is up to the task, risking her life daily ferrying aircraft to the men on the front line.But when tragedy strikes and Doug is reported missing after being shot down in his Spitfire, Raine realises that this war could tear both the country she loves – and her heart – apart…A brave and gripping story about women overcoming adversity whilst navigating love, loss, and the treacherous wartime skies.

The Light Over London


Julia Kelly - 2019
    It’s always been easier for Cara Hargraves to bury herself in the past than confront the present, which is why working with a gruff but brilliant antiques dealer is perfect. While clearing out an estate, she pries open an old tin that holds the relics of a lost relationship: among the treasures, a World War II-era diary and a photograph of a young woman in uniform. Eager to find the author of the hauntingly beautiful, unfinished diary, Cara digs into this soldier’s life, but soon realizes she may not have been ready for the stark reality of wartime London she finds within the pages. In 1941, nineteen-year-old Louise Keene’s life had been decided for her—she’ll wait at home in her Cornish village until her wealthy suitor returns from war to ask for her hand. But when Louise unexpectedly meets Flight Lieutenant Paul Bolton, a dashing RAF pilot stationed at a local base, everything changes. And changes again when Paul’s unit is deployed without warning. Desperate for a larger life, Louise joins the women’s branch of the British Army in the anti-aircraft gun unit as a Gunner Girl. As bombs fall on London, she and the other Gunner Girls relish in their duties to be exact in their calculations, and quick in their identification of enemy planes during air raids. The only thing that gets Louise through those dark, bullet-filled nights is knowing she and Paul will be together when the war is over. But when a bundle of her letters to him are returned unanswered, she learns that wartime romance can have a much darker side. Illuminating the story of these two women separated by generations and experience, Julia Kelly transports us to World War II London in this heartbreakingly beautiful novel through forgotten antique treasures, remembered triumphs, and fierce family ties.

The Measure of Gold


Sarah C. Patten - 2020
    It is 1940, and Germany has just invaded France. Across the ocean, in Sweetwater, Tennessee, Penelope, a beautiful alchemist, receives a letter from her childhood friend, Naomie, urging her to France. Bereft from the loss of her widowed father, Penelope leaves her life and travels to German-occupied Paris. There, she meets Naomie's brother, the brilliant alchemist Fulcanelli and his mysterious apprentice, Lucien.Falling headlong into the alchemy's esoteric world, she helps Fulcanelli and Lucien resist the Nazi forces. She trains as a spy and infiltrates a powerful brothel, Le Chambrement. As the horrors of war close in around her, Penelope must seduce a murderous Nazi officer in a desperate calculation to save her lover, Lucian. Through the devastating magic of life, Penelope learns that alchemy has far more to do with the person than the element.The Measure of Gold is an epic story of alchemy, betrayal, courage, and transcendent love.

The Girl from Krakow


Alex Rosenberg - 2015
    Rita Feuerstahl comes to the university in Krakow intent on enjoying her freedom. But life has other things in store—marriage, a love affair, a child, all in the shadows of the oncoming war. When the war arrives, Rita is armed with a secret so enormous that it could cost the Allies everything, even as it gives her the will to live. She must find a way both to keep her secret and to survive amid the chaos of Europe at war. Living by her wits among the Germans as their conquests turn to defeat, she seeks a way to prevent the inevitable doom of Nazism from making her one of its last victims. Can her passion and resolve outlast the most powerful evil that Europe has ever seen?In an epic saga that spans from Paris in the ’30s and Spain’s Civil War to Moscow, Warsaw, and the heart of Nazi Germany, The Girl from Krakow follows one woman’s battle for survival as entire nations are torn apart, never to be the same.

The Light Within Us


Charlotte Betts - 2020
     1891. Spindrift House, Cornwall. Talented painter Edith Fairchild is poised to begin a life of newlywed bliss and artistic creation with her charming husband Benedict. He recently inherited Spindrift House near Port Isaac and Edith is inspired by the glorious Cornish light and the wonderful setting overlooking the sea. But then happiness turns to heartbreak. In great distress, Edith turns to an artist friend for comfort and after a bitterly-regretted moment of madness she finds herself pregnant with his child.Too ashamed to reveal her secret, Edith devotes herself to her art. Joined at Spindrift House by her friends - Clarissa, Dora and Pascal - together they turn the house into a budding artists' community. But despite their dreams of an idyllic way of life creating beauty by the sea, it becomes clear that all is not perfect within their tight-knit community, and that the weight of their secrets could threaten to tear apart their paradise forever . . . Praise for Charlotte Betts: 'Romantic, engaging and hugely satisfying' Katie Fford 'A highly-recommended novel of love, tragedy and the power of art' Daily Mail 'I was captivated by this moving, heart-warming and beautifully woven story - gripping, atmospheric, eloquently told and full of rich detail' Kate Furnivall

The Girl from Munich


Tania Blanchard - 2017
    The choices she makes will change her life forever.Growing up in Hitler’s Germany, Charlotte von Klein has big dreams for the future. Her mind is full of plans for a sumptuous wedding to her childhood sweetheart Heinrich while working for the Luftwaffe, proudly giving her all for the Fatherland.But in 1943, the tide of the war is turning against Germany, and Lotte’s life of privilege and comfort begins to collapsing around her. As Hitler’s Reich abandons Germany and the country falls to the Allied forces, Lotte is forced to flee from the unfolding chaos to the country with the darkly attractive Erich Drescher, her Luftwaffe superior.Amid the danger, pain and heartbreak of a country turning on itself, Lotte must forge a new life for herself. But as the country struggles to find its future, shadows of the past come rushing back and Lotte finds herself questioning everything she has fought for - love, duty and freedom.

The Dover Cafe at War


Ginny Bell - 2020
    Overcome with shame, she has never revealed the identity of Donny's father - not even to her own mother.But with World War II just around the corner, soon Marianne's past catches up with her. And suddenly the lives of the Castle family become a lot more complicated.Will the secrets from her past destroy their future?

The Runaway Children: The heartbreaking, page-turning new historical saga from Lindsey Hutchinson for 2022


Lindsey Hutchinson - 2022
    

The Orphan's Daughter


Sandy Taylor - 2020
    For thirteen-year-old Nora Doyle every day is a fight for survival. In the rural Irish village she calls home, she is no stranger to funerals or feeling the cold wind blowing through the windows of the small cottage where she lives with her family. Somehow Nora manages to keep smiling, but she longs to escape the poverty surrounding her. One day, Nora’s life changes when her sense of adventure leads her and her best friend, Kitty, through a hole in the wall of the huge house on the top of the hill. In the secluded, carefully tended garden they discover on the other side, Nora and Kitty meet Edward, the young boy who lives there, and they instantly form a strong bond. Soon Nora is spending every moment she can spare in the secret garden. But in escaping from her life in the village, Nora is going against the wishes of her family, who have forbidden any contact with the big house. Because Edward holds the key to a family secret that will change Nora’s life forever, and force her to make an impossible choice between her family and her future… A heart-wrenching story of love, loss and the power of friendship during unimaginable hardship. This book is perfect for fans of Orphan Train and The Girl With No Name.

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…