Book picks similar to
Reach for the Sky by James Scott
historical-fiction
fiction
adult-fiction
historical
The Medallion
Cathy Gohlke - 2019
Sophie Kumiega, a British bride working in the city's library, awaits news of her husband, Janek, recently deployed with the Polish Air Force. Though Sophie is determined that she and the baby in her womb will stay safe, the days ahead will draw her into the plight of those around her, compelling her to help, whatever the danger.Rosa and Itzhak Dunovich never imagined they would welcome their longed-for first child in the Jewish ghetto, or that they would let anything tear their family apart. But as daily atrocities intensify, Rosa soon faces a terrifying reality: to save their daughter's life, she must send her into hiding. Her only hope of finding her after the war--if any of them survive--is a medallion she cuts in half and places around her neck.Inspired by true events.
Cafe Berlin
Harold Nebenzal - 1992
Utterly accurate in its depiction of historical and military events and astoundingly rich in detail, Cafe Berlin is vivid and compelling.
Heart of Deception
M.L. Malcolm - 2011
Malcolm is the riveting sequel to the author’s critically acclaimed Heart of Lies. Based in part on her family’s actual history, Heart of Deception tells the intensely exciting story of a desperate Hungarian national who becomes an international spy in order to protect his loved ones during World War Two and beyond. A tale of espionage and intrigue, duty and destiny, it is an extraordinary saga that offers a richly evocative portrayal of a remarkable twentieth-century epoch while delivering the page-turning historical suspense of James Clavell, Susan Howatch, and Ken Follett.
Rich Man, Poor Man
Irwin Shaw - 1969
. . by far Shaw's best work . . . it's all fascinating". Don't forget to stock up on this six-million-copy bestseller.
Escape from Berlin
Irene N. Watts - 2013
First there was the burning of the neighborhood shops. Then her father, a bookseller, must leave the family and go into hiding. No longer allowed to go to school or even sit in a café, Marianne's only comfort is her beloved mother. Remember Me - Young Marianne is one of the lucky ones. She has escaped on the first Kindertransport organized to take Jewish children out of Germany to safety in Britain. At first Marianne is desperate. Marianne speaks little English and is made to feel unwelcomed in her sponsor's home and, most of all, she misses her mother terribly. As the months pass, she realizes that she cannot control the circumstances around her. She must rely on herself if she is to survive. Finding Sophie - Sophie Mandel was only seven years old when she arrived in London on the first Kindertransport from Germany. She has grown up with a friend of her parents, a woman she calls Aunt Em, and despite the war and its deprivations, she has made a good life for herself in England with her foster mother. She has even stopped thinking about the parents she left behind. Now the war is over, and fourteen-year-old Sophie is faced with a terrible dilemma. Where does she belong?
Letters From Berlin: A Story of War, Survival, and the Redeeming Power of Love and Friendship
Kerstin Lieff - 2012
Like countless citizens under Hitler’s regime, Margarete struggled to understand what was happening to her country. Later, as a nurse for the German Red Cross, she treated countless young soldiers—recruited in the eleventh hour to fight a losing battle—they would die before her eyes as Allied bombs racked her beloved city. Yet, her deep humanity, intelligence, and passion for life—which sparkles in every sentence of her memoir—carried Margarete through to war’s end. But just when she thought the worst was over, and she and her mother were on a train headed to Sweden, they were suddenly rerouted deep into Russia…This powerful account draws back the curtain on a piece of history that has been largely overlooked—the nightmare that millions of German civilians suffered, simply because they were German. That Margarete survived to tell her tale so vividly and courageously is a gift to us all.
The Venice Sketchbook
Rhys Bowen - 2021
Her beloved great-aunt Lettie leaves her a sketchbook, three keys, and a final whisper…Venice. Caroline’s quest: to scatter Juliet “Lettie” Browning’s ashes in the city she loved and to unlock the mysteries stored away for more than sixty years.It’s 1938 when art teacher Juliet Browning arrives in romantic Venice. For her students, it’s a wealth of history, art, and beauty. For Juliet, it’s poignant memories and a chance to reconnect with Leonardo Da Rossi, the man she loves whose future is already determined by his noble family. However star-crossed, nothing can come between them. Until the threat of war closes in on Venice and they’re forced to fight, survive, and protect a secret that will bind them forever.Key by key, Lettie’s life of impossible love, loss, and courage unfolds. It’s one that Caroline can now make right again as her own journey of self-discovery begins.
The Whiskey Sea
Ann Howard Creel - 2016
The girls are taken in by a kindly fisherman named Silver, and Frieda begins to feel at home on the water. When Silver sells his fishing boat to WWI veteran Sam Hicks, thinking Sam would be a fine husband for Frieda, she’s outraged. But Frieda manages to talk Sam into teaching her to repair boat engines instead, so she has a trade of her own and won’t have to marry.Frieda quickly discovers that a mechanic’s wages won’t support Bea and Silver, and is lured into a money-making team of rumrunners supplying alcohol to New York City speakeasies. Speeding into dangerous waters to transport illegal liquor, Frieda gets swept up in the lucrative, risky work—and swept off her feet by a handsome Ivy Leaguer who’s in it just for fun.As danger mounts and her own feelings threaten to drown her, can Frieda find her way back to solid ground—and to a love that will sustain her?
The War Nurses
Lizzie Page - 2018
Lane and Nadine Dorries. As war takes its toll, the love and care of two brave young nurses become everything to the wounded soldiers they tend... 1914. Two plucky young nurses pledge to help the war effort: Mairi, a wholesome idealist hoping to leave behind her past and Elsie, a glamorous single mother with a weakness for handsome soldiers. Despite their differences, the pair become firm friends. At the emergency medical shelter where they're based, Elsie and Mairi work around the clock to treat wounded soldiers. It's heart-breaking work and they are at constant risk from shelling, fire and disease. Occasionally there are happier times… parties, trips and letters. And maybe even the possibility of love with an attractive officer in their care… But as the war continues and the stress of duty threatens to pull the two women apart, will Elsie and Mairi's special nurses' bond be strong enough to see them through? Based on a true story, Mairi and Elsie's devotion and bravery will make you smile and cry. You won't want to put it down!
Flora
Gail Godwin - 2013
She lost her mother some years before, and her beloved grandmother has just passed away. And now her father has left town to work on a top-secret military project at Oak Ridge during the final months of World War II. Helen is wise beyond her years, but a ten-year-old cannot be left on her own to fend for herself. Her father arranges a summer guardian, Flora, her late mother's twenty-two-year-old first cousin who cries at the drop of a hat. A fiercely imaginative child, Helen is desperate to keep her house intact, with all its ghosts and stories. Flora is the good-hearted, modest cousin who wants to do her best for Helen. Their relationship and its fallout, played out against a backdrop of a lost America, will haunt Helen for the rest of her life.
Helga: Growing Up in Hitler's Germany
Karen Truesdell Riehl - 2014
Asked about her experience during the war, Helga quietly revealed she had been a "Jugend," a member of Hitler's child army, "trained to revere and obey the Fuhrer." When Riehl asked how children were recruited, she replied, "Clever seduction." Helga's seduction begins with an invitation from Hitler she cannot refuse. The ten-year-old is ordered to attend weekly meetings of the Hitler Youth movement. Lies and tasty treats are employed to entice her allegiance to the Fuhrer. Helga is sent away to Hitler Youth training camps as the war draws nearer her home in Berlin. She is caught between loyalty to her family, suffering under Nazi rule, and loyalty to the Fuhrer, who keeps her safe and well-fed. Helga's gradual disillusionment, followed by her harrowing escape home, is a powerful coming-of-age story of a young girl's survival of Nazi mind control.
Heart Mountain
Gretel Ehrlich - 1988
Ehrlich explores the twin solitudes of political exile and geographic isolation in this powerful novel—the story of Japanese Americans forced into a relocation camp—set in Wyoming during World War II.
The Last Train: A Holocaust Story
Rona Arato - 2013
Hungary is allied with Germany to protect its citizens from invasion, but in 1944 Hitler breaks his promise to keep the Nazis out of Hungary.The Nazi occupation forces the family into situations of growing panic and fear: first into a ghetto in their hometown; then a labor camp in Austria; and, finally, to the deadly Bergen Belsen camp deep in the heart of Germany. Separated from their father, 6-year-old Paul and 11-year-old Oscar must care for their increasingly sick mother, all while trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy amid the horrors of the camp.In the spring of 1945, the boys see British planes flying over the camp, and a spark of hope that the war will soon end ignites. And then, they are forced onto a dark, stinking boxcar by the Nazi guards. After four days on the train, the boys are convinced they will be killed, but through a twist of fate, the train is discovered and liberated by a battalion of American soldiers marching through Germany.The book concludes when Paul, now a grown man living in Canada, stumbles upon photographs on the internet of his train being liberated. After writing to the man who posted the pictures, Paul is presented with an opportunity to meet his rescuers at a reunion in New York — but first he must decide if he is prepared to reopen the wounds of his past.
The Girl at the Lion d'Or
Sebastian Faulks - 1989
This Vintage Original edition marks its first appearance in the United States.On a rainy night in the 1930s, Anne Louvet appears at the run-down Hotel du Lion d'Or in the village of Janvilliers. She is seeking a job and a new life, one far removed from the awful injustices of her past. As Anne embarks on a torrential love affair with a married veteran of the Great War, The Girl at the Lion d'Or fashions an unbreakable spell of narrative and atmosphere that evokes French masters from Flaubert to Renoir.
Love and Ruin
Paula McLain - 2018
She also finds herself unexpectedly—and uncontrollably—falling in love with Hemingway, a man already on his way to becoming a legend. In the shadow of the impending Second World War, and set against the tumultuous backdrops of Madrid, Finland, China, Key West, and especially Cuba, where Martha and Ernest make their home, their relationship and professional careers ignite. But when Ernest publishes the biggest literary success of his career, For Whom the Bell Tolls, they are no longer equals, and Martha must make a choice: surrender to the confining demands of being a famous man's wife or risk losing Ernest by forging a path as her own woman and writer. It is a dilemma that will force her to break his heart, and her own.