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From top left: Putnam, Berkley, Knopf, Atria, William Morrow, and Ballantine
In English | There's arguably no time and place more ripe for dramatic tension, tragedy and triumph, than World War II Europe, which helps explain readers’ enormous appetite for novels set in that time and place. The good news for those readers: There are plenty of writers and publishers ready to feed it. The appeal of these stories is evergreen, says Amanda Bergeron, executive editor at Berkley, publisher of quite a few of the books described below (Bergeron edited The Women of Chateau Lafayette and The Invisible Woman). While it remains one of the darkest periods in modern history, she notes, people take comfort in reading about it “with the reassuring knowledge that the conflict ended and the good guys won."
Below are 18 new or upcoming works of historical fiction set during the era, many featuring unlikely spies, family secrets unearthed, brave members of the Resistance and their treacherous enemies, and, yes, lots of heartache and romance.
Lana's War by Anita Abriel
Lana Antanova, brought up in Paris by a White Russian mother, is pregnant when she witnesses Gestapo officers execute her music-teacher husband for hiding a Jewish girl in a piano. Later joining the Resistance — channeling her energy into avenging his death — she pretends to live as the party-loving mistress of a wealthy Swiss businessman, also in the Resistance, named Guy Pascal on the French Riviera. Her aristocratic background helps them make connections with the area's Russian émigré community as danger from the enemy mounts. Meanwhile Lana falls hard for Guy and becomes deeply attached to a young orphaned Jewish girl named Odette. It's a romantic story with a gorgeous setting.
William Morrow
Our Darkest Night by Jennifer Robson
This novel from the best selling Robson focuses on the Italian front, offering an unusual setting and premise that's based on a real-life story. Antonina “Nina” Mazin lives in Venice, the daughter of the Jewish ghetto's last remaining doctor, who was training her for admission to medical school. But when their lives are threatened in the autumn of 1943, Dr. Mazin asks a close friend, a Catholic priest, to help convey his daughter to safety. The catch: She will have to pose as the wife of a farmer named Nico Gerardi, a man who until recently had been studying for the priesthood himself. Although Nina and Nico slowly fall in love, his continued efforts to resist the Nazis make them vulnerable. Robson, well known for her wartime romance novels, continues to spin romance here, but with a humbler atmosphere and characters with real grit and determination.
Berkley
The Invisible Woman by Erika Robuck
Robuck, whose historical novels are often centered on actual literary figures (Hemingway's Girl, Call Me Zelda), fictionalizes the wartime feats of a real-life Baltimore debutante-turned-spy named Virginia Hall. Recruited in 1941 by the British Special Operations Executive, Hall was the first woman settled in France for the purpose of espionage until she was forced to leave in late 1942 to avoid capture. The Gestapo considered her “the most dangerous of all allied spies,” this despite her artificial leg that she nicknamed “Cuthbert,” and the story details her bold escapades undermining the Nazi effort. The novel has received a lot of positive attention and it should, for its strong, fascinating heroine and her cinematic derring-do.
Ballantine
The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan
From the author of The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir comes a sprightly novel about a wartime cooking contest and its four entrants. “The Kitchen Front” BBC radio program spurs excitement when it announces a competition with the grand prize a job as the first-ever female cohost of the show. Motivations for entering vary: Young widow Audrey needs financial relief. Nell, a kitchen maid, seeks a road out of lifetime servitude, while her employer's wife, Gwendoline, hopes for a path to divorce. Finally, Zelda, a London-trained chef, needs a new career and a new home. The contestants wrangle, then help each other, as they struggle with sourcing and presenting good food during the strictures of wartime. But although Ryan weaves in the hardships of war, she also allows them to revel in the more lighthearted cooking challenge and, finally, in becoming fast friends. It's a delightful read. (Available Feb. 23)
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