Book picks similar to
Winter's Return: Guy Winter Mysteries (Book 4) by James Philip


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The Rose Code


Kate Quinn - 2021
    As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to mysterious country estate Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Vivacious debutante Osla is the girl who has everything—beauty, wealth, and the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses—but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, and puts her fluent German to use as a translator of decoded enemy secrets. Imperious self-made Mab, product of East-End London poverty, works the legendary code-breaking machines as she conceals old wounds and looks for a socially advantageous husband. Both Osla and Mab are quick to see the potential in local village spinster Beth, whose shyness conceals a brilliant facility with puzzles, and soon Beth spreads her wings as one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts. But war, loss, and the impossible pressure of secrecy will tear the three apart. 1947. As the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip whips post-war Britain into a fever, three friends-turned-enemies are reunited by a mysterious encrypted letter—the key to which lies buried in the long-ago betrayal that destroyed their friendship and left one of them confined to an asylum. A mysterious traitor has emerged from the shadows of their Bletchley Park past, and now Osla, Mab, and Beth must resurrect their old alliance and crack one last code together. But each petal they remove from the rose code brings danger—and their true enemy—closer...

Blood of the Reich


Mike Whicker - 2009
    Set in Cincinnati, Ohio, during the height of World War II, Blood of the Reich is a non-stop thriller that continues story of the enigmatic German spy Erika Lehmann.

The Tainted Crown (Horstberg Saga #4)


Elizabeth D. Michaels - 2015
    He also grew up observing the powerful and tender love shared by his parents. Determined to find that same kind of love in his own life, he is holding out for a woman who can see more in him than a marriage that will give his future wife prestige and great wealth. After more than a decade of searching for the right woman, Erich may have finally found a love beyond anything he’d imagined. But his happiness and the stability of the country is at risk when a long-dormant evil comes to the surface in Horstberg, threatening his life and that of his young nephew, who is Erich’s heir. While Erich tries to remain confident that he will live long enough to claim his right to serve his country, he is haunted by premonitory dreams that imply his life will come to a tragic end. As a force of extremist revolutionaries force Horstberg to the brink of war, the entire du Woernig family must flee into hiding for the sake of their own survival. Only when everything is on the line does Erich come to fully understand what truly matters. Please note that Book Five, the final book in the Horstberg Saga will be available for preorder on April 6th and will be released May 4th.

Red Joan


Jennie Rooney - 2013
    ‘Nobody talked about what they did during the war. We all knew we weren’t allowed to.’Joan Stanley has a secret.  For fifty years she has been a loving mother, a doting grandmother and an occasional visitor to ballroom dancing and watercolour classes. Then one sunlit spring morning there is a knock on the door.

The Missing Gun (Hawker of the Yard Book 1)


W.H. Oxley - 2014
    Hitler has just conquered Poland, but life in London continues much as it did in peacetime, albeit a little more restricted since the introduction of petrol rationing. No bombs have been dropped on the city as yet, but the population go about their daily business under the constant threat of German air raids, and a blackout remains in force at night. For Scotland Yard and the criminal fraternity, however, it is business as usual. When a pawnbroker’s assistant is wounded by a gunman wearing a gasmask, it appears to be a straightforward case of a bungled armed robbery, but as Hawker proceeds with his investigation, the more facts he uncovers the more confusing the affair becomes. A red-headed soldier, a missing gun, a dead cat, an empty violin case and a damaged violin are only a few of the threads that have to be unravelled before he can wrap up the case – with a little help from Sherlock Holmes.

The Golden Hour


Beatriz Williams - 2019
    Newly-widowed Leonora “Lulu” Randolph arrives in Nassau to investigate the Governor and his wife for a New York society magazine. After all, American readers have an insatiable appetite for news of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, that glamorous couple whose love affair nearly brought the British monarchy to its knees five years earlier. What more intriguing backdrop for their romance than a wartime Caribbean paradise, a colonial playground for kingpins of ill-gotten empires?Or so Lulu imagines. But as she infiltrates the Duke and Duchess’s social circle, and the powerful cabal that controls the islands’ political and financial affairs, she uncovers evidence that beneath the glister of Wallis and Edward’s marriage lies an ugly—and even treasonous—reality. In fact, Windsor-era Nassau seethes with spies, financial swindles, and racial tension, and in the middle of it all stands Benedict Thorpe: a scientist of tremendous charm and murky national loyalties. Inevitably, the willful and wounded Lulu falls in love.Then Nassau’s wealthiest man is murdered in one of the most notorious cases of the century, and the resulting coverup reeks of royal privilege. Benedict Thorpe disappears without a trace, and Lulu embarks on a journey to London and beyond to unpick Thorpe’s complicated family history: a fateful love affair, a wartime tragedy, and a mother from whom all joy is stolen.The stories of two unforgettable women thread together in this extraordinary epic of espionage, sacrifice, human love, and human courage, set against a shocking true crime . . . and the rise and fall of a legendary royal couple.

Stella Bain


Anita Shreve - 2013
    When an American woman, Stella Bain, is found suffering from severe shell shock in an exclusive garden in London, surgeon August Bridge and his wife selflessly agree to take her in. A gesture of goodwill turns into something more as Bridge quickly develops a clinical interest in his houseguest. Stella had been working as a nurse's aide near the front, but she can't remember anything prior to four months earlier when she was found wounded on a French battlefield. In a narrative that takes us from London to America and back again, Shreve has created an engrossing and wrenching tale about love and the meaning of memory, set against the haunting backdrop of a war that destroyed an entire generation.

River Oaks Plantation


B.J. Robinson - 2013
    J. Robinson comes a family saga amidst the backdrop of the Civil War and a deadly hurricane, rising floodwaters in the Big Easy, or Crescent City, as a plantation on River Road in Vacherie, Louisiana, is threatened. Will Hurricane Katrina destroy what the Civil War spared? Margaret Jane Turnrow first laid eyes on River Oaks Plantation amid lush foliage and oak trees dripping with Spanish moss when she returned from her honeymoon as a petite hazel-eyed fifteen-year-old bride to the antebellum mansion. She immediately fell in love with the house and grounds and beautifying the garden with plants. Her first task involved lining the oak drive with azaleas. Determined to have the best plantation gardens, she soon recreated formal ones designed from precious memories of France, Italy, and England she'd toured on her honeymoon. Before the Civil War, she imported plants, and gardening became her passion. During the war, it was her only one. The fertile Louisiana soil loved and nursed her plants as much as she did, and they grew like the cotton and sugarcane. Pale as a magnolia blossom, she sparkled like the sun reflecting off Lake Pontchartrain when she flashed pearly white teeth with her camellia red smile, but small white hands tucked demurely into the folds of her gown as she sat quietly during elegant dinners, concealed her true vivacious spirit. The war would change the shy woman-child as it ravaged through her life and took its toll on the home and family life she came to know and love with all of her heart. Before the Civil War, dashing Danny Paul Turnrow stood six-foot-two-inches, as tall and elegant as the white-columned plantation home he'd purchased on the banks of the Mississippi River. He led a charmed life as a charismatic cotton baron known as one of the richest men on River Road. River Oaks boasted over thirty-five-hundred acres of fertile Louisiana soil, mostly planted in cotton with the exception of some sugarcane along the Mississippi River banks and his wife's gardens. He returned from the war a different man, as broken as the pillared splendor of the South. Surrounded by cypress swamps and sugarcane fields on the river's end and white blankets of cotton edging the dirt roads, River Oaks Plantation still stood, but the grand life he'd led turned to one of backbreaking toil. He no longer stood so tall and proud with an aching back hunched over Louisiana cotton fields. With the future uncertain, fear lurks in his heart and soul and clouds his mind. What will sustain his marriage through the loss? Can they defend what's most precious to them and maintain River Oaks as a working plantation? The manor home is the only legacy he has left and the only life he has ever known. Will he lose it? Years later, Amaryllis Camilla O'Brien is stranded alone with two dogs on the top floor of an antebellum plantation in Vacherie, Louisiana, as a deadly hurricane rips and roars through the city and raging floodwaters threaten to devour the old home. She discovers a yellowed diary. Will family secrets drown in the flood with her? Will the diary matter? She's determined to save it and the dogs, or die trying. Has her grandmother left her a sinking ship? Noah Gautreaux, the plantation manager, took vehicles to higher ground and is supposed to return, but will he make it in time to save Amaryllis and his pet girls? The old house withstood the floods of 1973, 1983, and 1993. He doesn't think he has to worry about it floating off down the Mississippi River, but as excessive rain and wind continue to batter the area and the water continues to rise when the levee breaches, he realizes there's a first time for everything and this could be it for the white-columned beauty of ages past.

Operation Kingfisher (World War Two Historical Saga Novels)


Hilary Green - 2013
    Desperate to escape, the two teenagers embark on a perilous journey back to England to the safety of their grandparents.But there are eyes everywhere.Luke and Christine band together with fugitive Allied airmen, thinking they will keep them safe and help them on their treacherous journey.But their new partnership could be putting them in more danger than they realize. Especially when there are hostile forces at work determined to scupper any plans to get the teenagers and airmen safely back to England.With secret operations mounting against the enemy, there is one path which remains unguarded: a risky escape route via the canals.Luke and Christine take refuge on a canal barge and find themselves immersed in the complex Operation Kingfisher.Can two teenagers make it across occupied France in one piece? Or will betrayal put them and the lives of others at great risk?

Hitler's Judas (Pea Island Gold Trilogy)


Tom Lewis - 2007
    Bormann, possibly the closest man to Adolf Hitler, knows Hitler's insane decision to invade Russia will destroy The Fatherland. Already in a position of enormous power, Bormann forms an intricate plan of escape. But Bormann has no intentions of escaping as a pauper. When the right moment comes, Bormann leaves the doomed Third Reich forever, taking with him 50 million in stolen Nazi gold. His surprising destination is Pea Island, a lonely strip of sand north of Cape Hatteras North Carolina. Will his plan succeed? Populated with exquisite, compelling, and memorable characters who will stay with readers long after the final page is turned, Hitler's Judas introduces a remarkable supporting cast, including Horst Von Hellenbach, Germany's celebrated U-Boat captain who detests war and the Nazi regime and is in terminal conflict with his sworn military duty; Elisabeth Kroll, an impressionable woman unable to choose between Horst or his twin brother Harold, a handsome, respected surgeon and fanatic Nazi; Edda Winter, Bormann's mistress and talented actress who hopes Bormann will be her ticket to Hollywood; Klaus Berger, Germany's most famous thespian, whose very life depends on how well he plays his most difficult role; and Sunday Everette, a stunning young black woman who stands in the way of Bormann and his goal. Resplendent with historical detail, Hitler's Judas is an intricate, moving and extraordinary tale of intrigue, murder, romance and betrayal. This is the second book of the trilogy Pea Island Gold, of which Sunday's Child was the first.

Under the Hidden Sun


MW Kennard - 2012
    Under the Hidden Sun will keep you turning the pages late at night until the very end.(from Amazon.com)

Now and Forever


Margaret Scutt - 2021
    But if she thinks she’s safe at home, she is wrong.Her scheming brother wants to marry her off to a fortune-hunter, and he won’t take no for an answer. Out on a lonely walk, Catherine is attacked and left for dead.Could this be her brother’s doing?Catherine won’t wait to find out. Her childhood friend, Martin Lacey, lives in the manor house across the woods, and there was a time when he would have done anything for her.But in the turmoil of Restoration England, nothing lasts forever. Will turning up at Martin’s door be the saving of her — or the end?

Love Letters in the Sand


June Francis - 2015
    But Marty is trapped in an unhappy marriage and nothing can come of it. Meanwhile, Peggy is desperate to marry her long-term boyfriend Pete. But Peggy’s staunchly Catholic parents would never accept a Protestant son-in-law, and she decides the only way to resolve her issues is to escape to a place where nobody can find her.With no job, no family to stay for and no hope of a future with Marty, an unexpected job offer from America offers Irene a lifeline. But it would mean never seeing Marty again. Will Irene and Peggy solve their problems by running away – or should they follow their hearts back home to Liverpool? An inspirational tale of love and friendship, perfect for fans of Kitty Neale and Lyn Andrews.

Warlight


Michael Ondaatje - 2018
    It is 1945, and London is still reeling from the Blitz and years of war. 14-year-old Nathaniel and his sister, Rachel, are apparently abandoned by their parents, left in the care of an enigmatic figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and grow both more convinced and less concerned as they get to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women with a shared history, all of whom seem determined now to protect, and educate (in rather unusual ways) Rachel and Nathaniel. But are they really what and who they claim to be? A dozen years later, Nathaniel begins to uncover all he didn’t know or understand in that time, and it is this journey – through reality, recollection, and imagination – that is told in this magnificent novel.

The Book of Lost and Found


Lucy Foley - 2015
    When her grandmother falls ill and bequeaths to Kate a small portrait of a woman who bears a striking resemblance to Kate's mother, Kate uncovers a mystery that may upend everything she thought she knew.Kate's journey to find the true identity of the woman in the portrait takes her to some of the world's most iconic and indulgent locales, revealing a love story that began in the wild 1920s and was disrupted by war and could now spark new love for Kate. Alternating between Kate's present-day hunt and voices from the past, THE BOOK OF LOST AND FOUND casts light on family secrets and love-both lost and found.