August 2022 Most Anticipated World War II Historical Fiction Books
A Feather on the Water by Lindsay Jayne Ashford
For three women in postwar Germany, 1945 is a time of hope—lost and found—in this powerful novel by the bestselling author of The Woman on the Orient Express. Just weeks after World War II ends, three women from different corners of the world arrive in Germany to run a Displaced Persons camp. They long to help rebuild shattered lives—including their own.
Signal Moon by Kate Quinn
Yorkshire, 1943. Lily Baines, a bright young debutante increasingly ground down by an endless war, has traded in her white gloves for a set of headphones. It’s her job to intercept enemy naval communications and send them to Bletchley Park for decryption.One night, she picks up a transmission that isn’t code at all—it’s a cry for help. An American ship is taking heavy fire in the North Atlantic: from 2023. Across an eighty-year gap, Lily and Matt must find a way to help each other.
Where the Sky Begins by Rhys Bowen
London, 1940. Bombs fall and Josie Banks’s world crumbles around her. Her overbearing husband, Stan, is unreachable, called to service. Her home, a ruin of rubble and ash. Evacuated to the English countryside, Josie meets Mike Johnson, a handsome Canadian pilot stationed at a neighboring bomber base, a growing intimacy brings her an inner peace she’s never felt before. Then Stan returns from the war. Now a threat looms larger than anyone imagined.
The Librarian Spy by Madeline Martin
Ava thought her job as a librarian at the Library of Congress would mean a quiet, routine existence. But an unexpected offer from the US military has brought her to Lisbon with a new mission: posing as a librarian while working undercover as a spy gathering intelligence. Meanwhile, in occupied France, Elaine has begun an apprenticeship at a printing press run by members of the Resistance.
The Disappearance of Josef Mengele by Olivier Guez
In this rigorously researched factual novel—drawn almost entirely from historical documents—Olivier Guez traces Mengele’s footsteps through these years of flight. For three decades, until the day he collapsed in the Brazilian surf in 1979, Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death who performed horrific experiments on the prisoners of Auschwitz, floated through South America in linen suits, keeping two steps ahead of Mossad agents, international police and the world’s journalists.
