Book picks similar to
The Railway Girls by Maisie Thomas


historical-fiction
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historical
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The Loneliness of Survival


Diana Finley - 2014
    Anna, a traumatised Jewish refugee, meets Sam, a British army officer in wartime Palestine.The novel spans 100 years of Anna's life; born in 1914 in a comfortable secular family in Vienna, her childhood is secure and protected until increasing anti-Semitism changes everything. A naive early affair causes a crisis. Anna escapes to Palestine carrying a secret buried deep within herself - one she cannot acknowledge for many years.When Anna and Sam meet, both are overwhelmed by unexpected love, but can they survive the challenges thrown up by their complex life together? Sam is posted to post-war Berlin and Anna must adjust to living in the land of the enemy. Her struggle results in psychological trauma, affecting her relationships with all those she loves. Will she succeed in overcoming the ghosts and secrets of her past and find some resolution?

A Long And Lonely Road


Katie Flynn - 2004
    Rose McAllister is waiting for her husband, Steve, to come home. He is a seaman, often drunk and violent, but Rose does her best to cope and see that her daughters, Daisy and Petal, suffer as little as possible. Steve, however, realises that war is coming and tries to reform, but on his last night home, he pawns the girls' new dolls to go on a drinking binge. When war is declared Rose has a good job but agrees the children must be evacuated. Daisy and Petal are happy at first, but circumstances change and they are put in the care of a woman who hates all scousers and taunts them with the destruction of their city. They run away, arriving home on the worst night of the May Blitz. Rose is attending the birth of her friend's baby and goes back to Bernard Terrace to find her home has received a direct hit, and is told that the children were seen entering the house the previous evening. Devastated, she throws herself into the war effort, risking her life before she considers finding out what really happened that fateful night...A Long and Lonely Road is yet another confirmation of the brilliance and warmth of Katie Flynn's saga novels.

Wartime with the Tram Girls (The Potteries Girls #2)


Lynn Johnson - 2021
    While the young men disappear off to foreign battlefields, the women left at home throw themselves into jobs meant for the boys.Hiding her privileged background and her suffragette past, Constance Copeland signs up to be a Clippie - collecting money and giving out tickets - on the trams, despite her parents’ disapproval.Constance, now known as Connie, soon finds there is more to life than the wealth she was born into and she soon makes fast friends with lively fellow Clippies, Betty and Jean, as well as growing closer to the charming, gentle Inspector Robert Caldwell.But Connie is haunted by another secret; and if it comes out, it could destroy her new life.After war ends and the men return to take back their roles, will Connie find that she can return to her previous existence? Or has she been changed forever by seeing a new world through the tram windows?A captivating, lively, romantic saga set in WW1 that will engross fans of Johanna Bell and Jenny Holmes.

Casualties


Lynne Reid Banks - 1986
    Experiences as young children in Europe during World War II later affects a couples marriage and has impact on their friends.

The Orphan Thief


Glynis Peters - 2019
    From the international bestselling author of The Secret OrphanWhen all seems lost…As Hitler’s bombs rain down on a battered and beleaguered Britain, Ruby Shadwell is dealt the most devastating blow – her entire family lost during the Coventry Blitz. Hope still survives…Alone and with the city in chaos, Ruby is determined to survive this war and rebuild her life.  And a chance encounter with street urchin Tommy gives Ruby just the chance she needs… And love will overcome.Because Tommy brings with him Canadian Sergeant Jean-Paul Clayton.  Jean-Paul is drawn to Ruby and wants to help her, but Ruby cannot bear another loss. Can love bloom amidst the ruins?  Or will the war take Ruby’s last chance at happiness too?

The Color of Secrets


Lindsay Ashford - 2015
    Neither wife nor widow, she lives in a numb state of limbo until, in the heat of an English summer, she meets Bill, a black American GI. Despite their vastly different backgrounds, neither can deny the love that overcomes them in the frantic weeks that follow, when every day could be their last.After Eva discovers she’s pregnant, Bill is shipped off to join the D-day fight, leaving her alone in a bigoted world. As her mixed-race daughter, Louisa, grows up, how far will Eva go to keep her safe and bury the past? And how far will Louisa go to uncover the truth?

The Last Bookshop in London: A Novel of World War II


Madeline Martin - 2021
    Grace Bennett has always dreamed of moving to the city, but the bunkers and blackout curtains that she finds on her arrival were not what she expected. And she certainly never imagined she’d wind up working at Primrose Hill, a dusty old bookshop nestled in the heart of London.Through blackouts and air raids as the Blitz intensifies, Grace discovers the power of storytelling to unite her community in ways she never dreamed—a force that triumphs over even the darkest nights of the war.

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.

The Women of Waterloo Bridge


Jan Casey - 2020
    Enjoying the physical work and her newfound purpose, she begins to realise that there could be so much more to her life than anything she'd ever dared to dream. Grieving after her little boy dies in an air raid, Gwen is completely lost when her husband sends their younger children to the countryside for safety. Enlisting as a construction worker, she is partnered with cheerful Evelyn. Despite Gwen's initial reluctance, the two women strike up a heartwarming friendship – but will it be enough to save Gwen from her sorrow? Musical prodigy Joan's life has always been dictated by her controlling mother. When an affair ends in scandal, Joan finally takes her life into her own hands. Determined to never touch a violin again, she soon finds work at Waterloo Bridge. Yet there are other complications for her to overcome... For these three women in London, only one thing is certain: the Second World War will change their lives forever. A heart-wrenching new WW2 saga for fans of Jenny Holmes and Soraya M. Lane.

The Tuscan Child


Rhys Bowen - 2018
    Badly wounded, he found refuge in a ruined monastery and in the arms of Sofia Bartoli. But the love that kindled between them was shaken by an irreversible betrayal.Nearly thirty years later, Hugo’s estranged daughter, Joanna, has returned home to the English countryside to arrange her father’s funeral. Among his personal effects is an unopened letter addressed to Sofia. In it is a startling revelation.Still dealing with the emotional wounds of her own personal trauma, Joanna embarks on a healing journey to Tuscany to understand her father’s history—and maybe come to understand herself as well. Joanna soon discovers that some would prefer the past be left undisturbed, but she has come too far to let go of her father’s secrets now…

The Last Night in London


Karen White - 2021
    Beautiful and ambitious Eva Harlow and her American best friend, Precious Dubose, are trying to make their way as fashion models. When Eva falls in love with Graham St. John, an aristocrat and Royal Air Force pilot, she can’t believe her luck – she’s getting everything she ever wanted. Then the Blitz devastates her world, and Eva finds herself slipping into a web of intrigue, spies and secrets. As Eva struggles to protect everything she holds dear, all it takes is one unwary moment to change their lives forever.London, 2019. American journalist Maddie Warner travels to London to interview Precious about her life in pre-WWII London. Maddie, healing from past trauma and careful to close herself off to others, finds herself drawn to both Precious and to Colin, Precious’ enigmatic surrogate nephew. As Maddie gets closer to her, she begins to unravel Precious’ haunting past – and the secrets she swore she’d never reveal …

Girls in Tin Hats


Annie Murray - 2020
     Two very different girls from this tight-knit community join up as ARP wardens to do their bit for the Home Front. Violet Simms lives with her controlling, widowed mother who runs the local pawn shop. At just twenty-years-old, Violet longs for friendship, love and escape. It seems her dreams might come true until tragedy strikes on one of the very worst nights of the Birmingham Blitz. Grace Templeton is the eldest in her family of ten children. Spirited Grace is determined never to become burdened by child bearing and drudgery like her mother. Adored by childhood sweetheart, Jimmy Oval, Grace believes she can do better. Volunteering as an ARP warden feels like a chance for adventure – until she sees the horror and reality of war first hand. In this blacked out city, where not everyone is quite what they seem, she comes to realize she is less in control of events than she had thought.The war will have long-lasting effects on every family… Long buried secrets come to light, and their stories are woven together amid the intense bombing of Birmingham.The girls’ lives will be changed forever by friendship and love, by tragedy and joy. Girls in Tin Hats is the heart-wrenching generational saga by Sunday Times top ten bestselling author Annie Murray.

The Charleston Scandal


Pamela Hart - 2020
    Cast in a West End play opposite another young hopeful, Canadian Zeke Gardiner, she dances blithely into the heady lifestyle of English high society and the London theatre set, from Noel Coward to Fred Astaire and his sister, Adele.When Kit is photographed dancing the Charleston alongside the Prince of Wales, she finds herself at the centre of a major scandal, sending the Palace into damage control and Kit to her aristocratic English relatives - and into the arms of the hedonistic Lord Henry Carleton. Amid the excesses of the Roaring Twenties, both Zeke and Kit are faced with temptations - and make choices that will alter the course of their lives forever.Readers of Natasha Lester's A KISS FROM MR FITZGERALD will love THE CHARLESTON SCANDAL. Bestselling author Pamela Hart's energetic, masterful storytelling will have you glued right until the end.

The Last Letter from Juliet


Melanie Hudson - 2019
    Every nook of her Cornish cottage is alive with memories just waiting to be discovered.Katherine Henderson has escaped to Cornwall for Christmas, but she soon finds there is more to her holiday cottage than meets the eye. And on the eve of Juliet’s 100th birthday, Katherine is enlisted to make an old lady’s final Christmas wish come true…

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