Historical Fiction Set During World War II
We’ve compiled some of the best novels that take place during World War II set all around the world, from London to Shanghai. Immerse yourself in stories during one of the most turbulent times in history. From sweeping love stories to family sagas, discover the historical fiction novel that takes you back in time and gives voice to unspeakable tragedies and heartwarming triumphs.
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Add to BookshelfEternal
by Lisa Scottoline
Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro grow up as the best of friends despite their differences. In the autumn of 1937, all of that begins to change as Mussolini asserts his power, and in time, everything that the three hold dear–their families, their homes, and their connection to one another–is tested in ways they never could have imagined. Against this backdrop, the intertwined fates of Elisabetta, Marco, Sandro, and their families will be decided, in a heartbreaking story of both the best and the worst that the world has to offer.
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The Last Year of the War
by Susan Meissner
From the acclaimed author of Secrets of a Charmed Life and As Bright as Heaven comes a novel about a German American teenager whose life changes forever when her immigrant family is sent to an internment camp during World War II.
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The English Patient
by Michael Ondaatje
Michael Ondaatje’s Booker Prize–winning bestseller lyrically portrays the convergence of four damaged lives in a bomb-riddled Italian villa in the last days of the war.
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Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
by Jamie Ford
Henry Lee, a Chinese American, remembers a young Japanese American girl, Keiko, from his childhood in the 1940s with whom he forged a bond of friendship and innocent love. After Keiko and her family were evacuated to the internment camps, she and Henry could only hope that their promise to each other would be kept. Now, forty years later, Henry’s search will take him on a journey to revisit the sacrifices he has made for family, for love, for country.
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Shanghai Girls
by Lisa See
In 1937, Shanghai is a city of great wealth and glamour. Twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives. But as Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, Pearl and May set out on the journey of a lifetime, one that will take them through the Chinese countryside, in and out of the clutch of brutal soldiers, and across the Pacific to the shores of America.
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When the Emperor Was Divine
by Julie Otsuka
Julie Otsuka tells the interned Japanese Americans’ story from five flawlessly realized points of view and conveys the exact emotional texture of their experience: the thin-walled barracks and barbed-wire fences, the omnipresent fear and loneliness, the unheralded feats of heroism. When the Emperor Was Divine is a work of enormous power that makes a shameful episode of our history as immediate as today’s headlines.
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A Boy in Winter
by Rachel Seiffert
As the stories of strangers weave together on one gray November morning in 1941, each of these characters comes to know the compromises demanded by survival, the oppressive power of fear, and the possibility of courage in the face of terror.
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The Spies of Shilling Lane
by Jennifer Ryan
From the bestselling author of The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir comes a thrilling new WWII story about a village busybody—the mighty Mrs. Braithwaite—who resolves to find, and then rescue, her missing daughter.
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The Light in the Ruins
by Chris Bohjalian
1943: When two soldiers arrive at the Rosatis family’s doorstep asking to see an ancient burial site, the Rosatis’ bucolic tranquility is shattered. 1955: Serafina Bettini, an investigator with the Florence Police Department, finds herself digging into past secrets about the Rosati family that will reveal a breathtaking story of moral paradox, human frailty, and the mysterious ways of the heart.
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We Must Be Brave
by Frances Liardet
December 1940. In the disorderly evacuation of Southampton, England, newly married Ellen Parr finds a small child asleep on the backseat of an empty bus. No one knows who little Pamela is. Spanning the sweep of the twentieth century, We Must Be Brave explores the fierce love that we feel for our children and the power of that love to endure.
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The Book Thief
by Markus Zusak
It is 1939 in Nazi Germany. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.
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Lilac Girls
by Martha Hall Kelly
For readers of The Nightingale and Sarah’s Key, inspired by the life of a real World War II heroine, this remarkable debut novel reveals the power of unsung women to change history in their quest for love, freedom, and second chances.
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The Narrow Road to the Deep North
by Richard Flanagan
Moving deftly from a Japanese POW camp to present-day Australia, from the experiences of Dorrigo Evans and his fellow prisoners to that of the Japanese guards, this savagely beautiful novel tells a story of the many forms of love and death, of war and truth, as one man comes of age, prospers, only to discover all that he has lost.
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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
This remarkable tale follows the island of Guernsey during the German Occupation, and of a society as extraordinary as its name. Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises and of finding connection in the most surprising ways.
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We Were the Lucky Ones
by Georgia Hunter
Inspired by the incredible true story of one Jewish family separated at the start of World War II, determined to survive—and to reunite—We Were the Lucky Ones is a tribute to the triumph of hope and love against all odds.
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The Lost Letter
by Jillian Cantor
Discover the historical novel of love and survival inspired by real resistance workers during World War II Austria, and the mysterious love letter that connects generations of Jewish families.
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