I didn’t see this issue coming so early in the year. I mean, there are so many books I want to read, but I have no time to finish them or post about them. I also promised prompts for the top five Wednesday group, but that didn’t happen. In fact, this post was meant to be extra content, but I would rather do it now than force myself to write something I’m not in the mood for. I get that it might be boring content for some, but I enjoy it. Here are five Historical Fiction books I have read.
Goodreads Blurb:
London 1943. The streets teem with refugees and soldiers while double agents circulate among them. Lt. Sarah Leach, code name Delilah, a British Wren officer with MI6, and Robert Johnston, an American lawyer and her OSS counterpart, team up to trade intelligence and sex. Robert is separated from his wife and Sarah has an “understanding” with a British tank commander. At a local pub where they talk shop over wine, their chemistry is unmistakable.
As the story begins where Code Name Delilah ended, Sarah and Robert are tracking the plot among high-ranking German officers to negotiate a separate peace with the Allies while gathering intel from each other on the looming D-Day invasion to feed to their higher ups.
When an SS patrol captures Sarah working with the French Resistance in Normandy, Robert partners with associates at Bletchley Park and a Jewish refugee from Dresden to rescue her. Injured, she returns to duty and Robert but soon learns her old boyfriend, badly wounded in France, is coming home.
Sarah is faced with an even more harrowing choosing between a future with her longtime beau and immediate comfort with Robert. A family tragedy hits the Johnstons, bringing Robert’s wife back to London, looking to restart their marriage. As the war ends, which relationships will endure?
Goodreads Blurb:
Based on the harrowing life of Eleonore Hodys, The Mistress of Auschwitz follows the true story of a political prisoner detained in the notorious concentration camp. While experiencing all the horrors of the holocaust, Eleonore turns to friendship for survival. Through companionship with another female prisoner, Eleonore must decide if she has the courage to join the resistance movement which is planning the overthrow of their wicked oppressors. Matters are only complicated when Eleonore unwittingly attracts the attention of the Commandant and she is forced to decide between her own comfort or her principles.
Goodreads Blurb:
The war is raging in Europe. These girls will do everything they can on the home front – but is a happy ever after possible in such dark and uncertain times? Manchester, 1940: The minute war was declared, best friends Sally and Deborah volunteered for the Home Guard, willing to do anything to help their boys fighting overseas. An Auxiliary Fire Service girl by night, Sally ends up stationed at the salvage depot by day. Working amidst the scrap metal and waste paper, helping to make do and mend, isn’t quite the glamorous life in uniform she’d imagined! But she’s determined to do her best and turn saucepans into Spitfires. When Sally meets Andrew, a quiet carpenter with a heartbreaking smile who understands how important her work is, she finally feels as though her efforts to keep calm and carry on are making a difference. As love blossoms, Sally feels herself opening up to Andrew in a way she’d never imagined possible. But then, just as Sally feels as hopeful as she can be in these times of war, a devastating air raid threatens everything she holds dear. As bombs rain down all over Manchester, deadly fires begin to destroy homes, and lives. With Andrew out rescuing families from the rubble, Sally rushes towards the plumes of smoke that fill the night sky. And is horrified to realise the very worst hit area has the salvage yard right at its heart. Desperate to help in any way she can, Sally, with her fellow salvage girls by her side, sets to work. But what will they find when the smoke clears? Will Sally and Andrew get the happy ending they so deserve? Or will her one chance at true love be lost forever as the morning dawns…?
Goodreads Blurb:
A heartbreaking saga of hope, family, and longing set in one of the untold parts of war-torn Europe.
Rhodes, 1940. Sixteen-year-old Dora Behar and her cousin Sarah are as close as sisters, planning their future and painting the sunsets that wash over the Mediterranean. But that was before the Nazis rose to power, blackening every corner of their once-peaceful Jewish district. And while some believe the war and discrimination will eventually pass, Dora’s family is about to make an impossible choice that will change her life forever…
2023. The war is long over, and for many, it remains in memory, a story to pass down to the next generation. But for a particular young artist, the war is more than just a memory—it’s a recurring a solemn figure standing on the very edges of an abandoned harbor, watching a ship sailing away, unaware that it will never come back to Rhodes…
Goodreads Blurb:
Every work of art tells a story. And every story has its secrets.
London, 1850. Iris Sheffield has plenty of people to worry about in her life: Hope, the ailing younger sister for whom Iris feels responsible. Winston, Iris’s fiancé, who is consumed with his work. And James, the handsome but arrogant artist painting Iris’s portrait, with whom she is forced to spend countless, awkward hours.
But when Iris finds the diary and photograph of a mysterious young woman, she can’t stop wondering who the woman is and what has become of her. The more questions Iris asks, the more she suspects someone does not want her to discover the answers.
Exploring themes of sisterly bonds, familial obligations, and the lengths we go to for those we love, The Portrait illustrates the surprising and frightening ways a work of art can tell a story.
Alex
Mybookworld24 