Showing titles in World War II & Holocaust

On the day of the historic 1945 Jewel Voice Broadcast - in which Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender to the Allied forces, bringing an end to World War II - three men, flush with jubilation, made a pact. After their deaths, each year on the anniversary of the broadcast, their souls would return to the Chinese village of their younger days. Now, seventy years later, the pledge is being fulfilled by American missionary Pastor Billy, brash gunner’s mate Ian Ferguson, and local soldier Liu Zhaohu. All that’s missing is Ah Yan - also known as Swallow.

Bloomsbury presents The Road to Grantchester by James Runcie, read by Joe Jameson. _______________ 'If you love the TV series Grantchester, don’t miss this captivating prequel. It reveals the backstory of how a young Sidney Chambers, carefree in London just before the Second World War, came to...

The struggle of the Irish people for independence is one of the compelling historical dramas of the 20th century. 1949 tells the story of Ursula Halloran, a fiercely independent young woman who comes of age in the 1920s. The tragedy of Irish civil war gives way in the 1920s to a repressive Catholic state led by Eamon De Valera. Married women cannot hold jobs, divorce is illegal, and the IRA has become a band of outlaws still devoted to and fighting for a Republic that never lived.

Brought to you by Penguin. FROM THE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLER - A SWEEPING, SUN-DRENCHED STORY OF LOVE, FAMILY AND UNTOLD SECRETS... Proud grandmother Matelda Cabrelli always has something to say. But, as she faces the end of her life, she worries she's failed to tell the stories that matter...

"A deeply moving book." —LEILA SLIMANI *** "A work of rare grace and importance."— THE GUARDIAN In January 2003, the Berest family receive a mysterious, unsigned postcard. On one side was an image of the Opéra Garnier; on the other, the names of their relatives who were killed in Auschwitz...

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 stands in front of the memorial, ready to do its bit in this new World War.... 

The first in a gripping new series of detective novels set at the birth of Stalin’s Russia. It is the time of the Great Terror. Inspector Pekkala – known as the Emerald Eye – was the most famous detective in all Russia. He was the favourite of the Tsar. Now he is the prisoner of the men he once hunted. Like millions of others, he has been sent to the gulags in Siberia and, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, he is as good as dead....

The brand-new heartwarming instalment in the Cornish Girls saga series from the RNA Romantic Saga of the Year nominee, perfect for fans of Ginny Bell and Elaine Everest The world is at peace at last, is it time for the Cornish Girls to love again? Cornwall, 1947. Tragedy strikes the village and...

Odile Souchet is obsessed with books, and working at The American Library in Paris for the formidable Director Dorothy Reeder is all she has ever dreamed of. The Library and its thriving community of students, writers, diplomats and book lovers provide her with a safe haven. When war is declared, the Library is determined to remain open. But then the Nazis invade Paris, and everything changes. The Nazi 'Library Protector' changes the rules overnight, declaring a war on words and making the librarians risk their lives to do their jobs.

Only one man can foil a plot set to change the course of history.... Ex-SAS soldier Ben Hope is enjoying life at Le Val, the facility in Northern France where he trains others in the dangerous art of hostage rescue, until a chance incident forces him to take on the role of bodyguard to the Swiss billionaire Maximilian Steiner. The victim of a recent abduction attempt, Steiner believes that a neo-Nazi terror group are bent on seizing a prized document from his personal collection.

Bloomsbury presents The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende, read by Maria Liatis and Edoardo Ballerini. THE POWERFUL AND MOVING NEW NOVEL FROM LITERARY LEGEND ISABEL ALLENDE PRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR 'A grand storyteller' – KHALED HOSSEINI 'A new novel by Isabel Allende is always a treat' –...

When Swindon comes under attack in late 1940, the women of the Great Western Railway Works find themselves on the frontline of war, battling for Britain. Working long gruelling shifts, watching for enemy aircraft from the factory roofs, and sleeping in crowded air raid shelters.

Paris, 1963. Behind Severine Kassel's carefully crafted image as the Louvre's most respected jewellery curator lies a woman haunted by unspeakable trauma. When she's invited to London to authenticate a collection of rare Byzantine pearls, her composed facade finally cracks. These are not just any pearls – they belong to her family, stolen in an act of unimaginable cruelty two decades earlier. Her shocking revelation sets off a frenzied hunt for former Nazi officer Ruda Mayek.

Oxford Street, London 1915. Sally Harper quietly battles to keep Harpers afloat in the difficult days of the war, whilst husband Ben is working all hours for the War Office. Beth Burrow is fighting concern for her husband, Jack, now at sea with the Merchant Navy, and the fear she may never see him again and be blessed with a child. Driven to exhaustion, Maggie Gibbs, is now working as a nursing assistant on the battlefields in France. With the everyday horrors of the casualties of war to contend with she suffers her own personal tragedy when her fiancé's plane ditches in the sea.

Read by Fenella Woolgar, known for her role as Sister Hilda in BBC series Call the Midwife. Three women united by their love of books. One library that has the power to change lives, even in wartime . . . When Juliet begins work ats Bethnal Green Library, she discovers it is far from the...

Jessie Warner has married Tom Smith and their baby is almost due. Settling down into their new home in Bethnal Green, Jessie looks forward to her new life – even though Tom is continually getting into mischief that borders on the downright criminal. When war begins and Tom is called up almost at once, Jessie is left to cope with the baby alone. Meanwhile Jessie’s twin, Hannah, has been recruited to help at Bletchley Park. Immersed in her work decoding German messages, she has no idea of Jessie’s increasing desperation.

Legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel is revered for her sophisticated style - the iconic little black dress - and famed for her intoxicating perfume Chanel No. 5. Yet behind the public persona is a complicated woman of intrigue, shadowed by mysterious rumors. The Queen of Paris, the new novel from award-winning author Pamela Binnings Ewen, vividly imagines the hidden life of Chanel during the four years of Nazi occupation in Paris in the midst of WWII - as discovered in recently unearthed wartime files.

Born to a groom at the elegant manor house Foxden Hall, the Dudley sisters never imagined the impossible choices World War II would force upon them. When London’s bombs destroy her teaching dreams, Bess returns to Foxden Acres as a Land Girl, watching on as the man she’s always loved plans a life with another, until tragedy violently changes everything. In the glittering West End, her sister Margot grasps stardom on the stage, only to be trapped between her ambitions and falling bombs. And in Nazi-occupied France, Claire gambles her life as an undercover agent.

Working in the camp’s munitions factory, Adela Rubenstein discovers the underground network fighting against the devastating cruelty all around them. Imprisoned for teaching Jewish orphans in secret for the resistance, she doesn’t hesitate to join the rebellion. Every night on the way back to her hut, she looks up at the stars, the only witness to their plan to blow up the crematoria buildings.

When World War II breaks out, Suzanne’s dream of attending the Royal Academy of Music crumbles. Determined to do her bit, she joins a swing band that entertains troops in some of the worst-hit cities of Europe. Through singing, Suzanne finds a confidence she never knew she had, and she soon wins the admiration of Britain’s brave servicemen. But her heart already belongs to a Navy officer who is serving out at sea. The question is...will they meet again?