Book picks similar to
Izzy's War by Isla Dewar


fiction
ww2
uk
historical-fiction

Dance With Wings: A moving epic of love, secrets and family drama


Amelia Carr - 2008
    But instead of wartime bad news it's from the legendary Jackie Cochran, asking Nancy to fly for Great Britain. For Nancy, a girl with flying in her blood, it's an opportunity she simply can't turn down. But that fateful decision is to trigger a series of events, with consequences that will reverberate through the generations.In summer 2006, Sarah is at a crossroads in her life when her adored grandmother Nancy asks her to help lay the ghosts of her past to rest. Sarah agrees, little suspecting the long-buried and shocking secrets that will be dragged to the surface.From the tension of World War Two right up to the present day, this is a sweeping family story that is both moving and unforgettable.Don't miss any of Amelia's romantic epics, Dance With Wings, A Song At Sunset, A Woman of Secrets and The Secret She Kept.

Love, Julie


Christine Bush - 2006
    She was not supposed to slide down drainpipes, play baseball in Central Park, or, worst of all, want to teach. Teaching was for impoverished young relatives, not for the heiress of the Brightingham fortune. When her father suddenly dies, leaving her wicked Uncle Edward as her trustee, she must resist his attempt to force her into a marriage that would bring her misery, no matter what the cost. She decides to leave the world behind. Julietta trades her fashionable dresses and dainty dancing shoes for serviceable travel clothes and sturdy boots. Dying her blond hair brown and donning her glasses, she travels incognito across the country to Grey Eagle, Montana, as Julie Bright, planning to take the position of school teacher, to begin a new life. But the handsome and dedicated young Sheriff, Jack White, takes one look at her and wants to send her packing. She is not what he expected as a teacher for his fledgling town. He knows trouble when he sees it. But for some reason, no matter what his instincts, he cannot make her leave. When the past finally catches up with her, he knows he'd move heaven and earth to keep her safe, and make her stay.

Now Is The Hour


Hilary Green - 2006
    Four firm friends are forced to part. Rose, the beautiful dancer, must return to her family in London and the blitz, leaving singer Richard to enlist in the army with their relationship still unresolved. Gay, asthmatic Merry, the musical director, is destined for the army too, while the object of his unrequited love, charismatic magician, Felix, chooses the RAF.Before long, Rose joins a group entertaining the troops in France. The Nazi war machine however is fast and merciless on the land and in the air and soon all of them find themselves in terrible danger. And as they are struck by the brutality of war they realise exactly who is most important to them and despite the odds, and in terrible circumstances, they determine to find each other again.With the threat of capture, injury and death ever present, the four of them will have to find reserves of courage, love and endurance that they did not know they possessed.

The Land Girls at Christmas


Jenny Holmes - 2017
    Renowned for their camaraderie and spirit, it is these brave women who step in to take on the gruelling farm work from the men conscripted into the armed forces.When Yorkshire mill girl Una joins the cause, she wonders how she’ll adapt to country life. Luckily she’s quickly befriended by more experienced Land Girls Brenda and Grace. But as Christmas draws ever near, the girls’ resolve is tested as scandals and secrets are revealed, lovers risk being torn apart, and even patriotic loyalties are called into question . . .With only a week to go until the festivities, can the strain of wartime still allow for the magic of Christmas? A wonderful, festive tale of friendship, romance and triumph over adversity that fans of Daisy Styles, Donna Douglas and Call the Midwife will adore.

Secrets of the Heart


Gilda O'Neill - 2008
    They hoped it would be over by Christmas... Britain is at war and the proximity of the docks means that life in and around London's Turnbury Buildings is hard and dangerous. Chances are taken, people have secrets, hearts are broken. And feelings about foreigners are running high. Sixteen-year-old Freddie Jarrett is secretly seeing a girl from the local Chinese community - a relationship that would be frowned on by both families, despite the fact that they all support the fight for freedom from oppression. And his sister Grace has her own secret to hide. A secret that no one outside the immediate family must ever know. As the threat of the Luftwaffe looms over the docks, the community is threatened with being torn apart by prejudice, fear and separation, and the disturbing loss of stability that brings with it the feeling that it is only what happens today that counts for anything...

Betting on a Lady's Heart (His Majesty's Hounds Book 14)


Arietta Richmond - 2018
     Gervaise Belmont, Viscount Woodridge, has sworn to no longer gamble – but giving it up is proving far harder than he had expected. He despairs of achieving his aims, especially as the reputation he created, two years earlier, persists, destroying his opportunities for change. Until a chance meeting with a young lady gives him a reason to hope. Miss Clarisse Weston is disconsolate. Her father has, after many, many years, married again – and her relationship with her stepmother is strained, to say the least. When she is encouraged to look for a husband, she feels trapped. Whilst her father has introduced her to a charming Earl, she finds herself uncertain – especially as the Viscount she met by accident wishes to court her too. But all is not as it seems, and a tangle of lies, deceptions and betrayals soon traps Clarisse. Is the Earl all that he seems? Is the Viscount truly a rake and a gambler beyond redemption? Is her stepmother as concerned for Clarisse’s wellbeing as she professes to be? And can Clarisse find her way through the web of deceit, to be with the man she loves, or will greed and manipulation steal her chance at happiness forever?

We'll Meet Again


Judith Saxton - 1996
    But she joined the WAAFs instead, together with a very mixed company of girls - all of whom had joined for very mixed reasons.

Our Lizzie


Anna Jacobs - 1999
    She makes an ill-advised marriage in order to escape her harsh home life. However, she quickly discovers that she has married a selfish and violent man. His beatings are ceaseless and she finds herself compelled to run away. With the help of some suffragettes, she escapes to Manchester, where she finds work in a munitions factory for a while. Sam manages to find her and drags her home. It is only when his violence causes her to lose their unborn baby that Lizzie really finds the strength to make things change, and to find happiness with a man who loves her.

Keep The Home Fires Burning


Anne Baker - 2004
    For a while she lives with her in-laws, but she leaps at the chance to return as a maid to the household where she worked before her marriage. With the birth of her daughter she is compelled to return to her parents-in-law, a less than ideal situation, particularly when in due course Cathy is being courted by dear old friend. When Cathy marries again and sets up in the antiques business with her husband, it looks like at last she will find the happiness she deserves, but she has made an enemy who can't bear to see Cathy enjoying her life...

Touch the Silence


Gloria Cook - 2003
    The First World War is casting its shadow over the Harvey family of Ford Farm. One brother has already been killed, and Tristan now serves at the Front. Though newly engaged to pretty Emilia Rowse – a friend since childhood – younger brother Ben is desperate to serve his country. But a horrific eye injury causes him to be declared unfit, a blow from which young Ben will never recover. Tensions mount as he is forced to remain at the farm with his elder brother Alec, a man with closely guarded secrets of his own…Filled with a rich cast of unforgettable characters and packed with period detail, Touch the Silence is the brilliant opening to the Harvey family books. For readers of Anne Baker, Maggie Hope and Daisy Styles.

The Railway Girls


Maisie Thomas - 2020
    Perfect for fans of Nancy Revell and Ellie Dean. In February, 1922, at the western-most entrance to Victoria Station in Manchester, a massive plaque was unveiled. Beneath a vast tiled map showing the lines of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway network, a series of seven bronze panels recorded the names of the men of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway who gave their lives for King and Country in the Great War – a total of 1,460 names.In March, 1940, a group of women of varying ages and backgrounds, stand in front of the memorial, ready to do their bit in this new World War..._________________________________________Mabel is determined to make a fresh start as a railway girl where no one will know the terrible thing she did and she can put her guilt behind her... Or is she just running away?Meanwhile Joan will never be as good as her sister, or so her Gran keeps telling her. A new job as a station clerk could be just the thing she needs to forget her troubles at home.And Dot is further into her forties than she cares to admit. Her beloved sons are away fighting and her husband – well, the less said about him the better. Ratty old sod. She is anxious to become a railway girl just like her dear mam – anything to feel she is supporting the sons she prays for every night. The three women start off as strangers, but soon form an unbreakable bond that will get them through the toughest of times...

Black Camp 21


Bill Jones - 2018
    Every day, thousands more pour in on ships from France. But only the most dangerous are sent to Camp 21 - 'black' prisoners - SS diehards who've sworn death before surrender. Nothing will stop their war, unless it's a bullet.As one fanatic plots a mass breakout and glorious march on London, Max Hartmann dreams of the oath he pledged to the teenage bride he scarcely knows and the child he's never met. Where do his loyalties really lie? To Hitler or to the life he left behind in the bombed ruins of his homeland?Beneath the wintry mountains, in the hell of Black Camp 21, suspicion and fear swirl around like the endless snow. And while the Reich crumbles - and his brutal companions plan their assault - Max's toughest battle is only just beginning.Inspired by terrifying actual events, Black Camp 21 takes readers on a gut-wrenching journey from the battlefields of France to its shocking climax in a camp which still stands today.

The Ship of Brides


Jojo Moyes - 2005
    for the first time, a post-WWII story of the war brides who crossed the seas by the thousands to face their unknown futures.1946. World War II has ended and all over the world, young women are beginning to fulfill the promises made to the men they wed in wartime. In Sydney, Australia, four women join 650 other war brides on an extraordinary voyage to England—aboard HMS Victoria, which still carries not just arms and aircraft but a thousand naval officers. Rules are strictly enforced, from the aircraft carrier’s captain down to the lowliest young deckhand. But the men and the brides will find their lives intertwined despite the Navy’s ironclad sanctions. And for Frances Mackenzie, the complicated young woman whose past comes back to haunt her far from home, the journey will change her life in ways she never could have predicted—forever.

Pocketful of Dreams


Jean Fullerton - 2017
    But things don't seem so rosy when rationing, evacuation and air-raids start to put this larger-than-life family to the test.When a mysterious young man arrives at the Brogans' local parish church, he provides just the dazzling distraction they need - and for eldest daughter Mattie, the promise of more than she'd ever wished for. But as the pair fall deeper in love, they are drawn into secret dangers, rife on the very London streets they call home.As the young couple race to protect the East End as they know it, can their dreams survive the darkening backdrop of war-time...?

Love is a Wounded Soldier


Blaine Reimer - 2012
    He woos and marries his first love, Ellen, and it appears his life is set for a happily-ever-after ending.But World War II is raging, and its vortex snatches him away from his young bride. He finds himself fighting in Europe, witnessing and participating in the unspeakable ugliness and brutality of war. His love for Ellen holds him back from utter despondency, and his will to fight and live draws strength from his desire to return home to her.When he finally does return home to Kentucky, he's exhausted, jaded, and scarred -- inside and out. His worst fear is how Ellen will respond to the changes in him, but when he gets home he finds that Ellen is different, too -- much different.Can things between them ever be the same again? Or will their love be the war's most tragic casualty?