4 New World War II Historical Fiction Books

by Susan Roberts

Today I have reviews of four new books that take place during WWII.  The first three are similar in some ways - they feature dual timelines and strong and resilient women and they are all based on real people or real situations. The fourth one is about an ordinary man who decides to make a difference.

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The Last Day in Paris by Suzanne Kelman

February 2024; Bookouture; 978-1837905232
audio, ebook, print (360 pages); historical fiction

This is the first book in a new series about sisters in Paris during World War II.  This book concentrates on art and the way many worked to save the art at the Louvre in Paris and the art that was confiscated from Jewish homes before the Nazis either sent some of it back to Germany or destroyed it because they considered it immoral and degenerate. The main character in this book Isabelle Valette is based on Rose Valland who secretly documented thousands of stolen artworks so that they could be reunited with their real owners after the war and was a key person in transporting art from the Louvre to secret hiding places

Isabelle worked at the Louvre and when the staff found out that the Germans would be invading Paris, they worked hard to get many paintings and sculptures out of the museum and into hiding places.  Once Paris was being controlled by the Germans, Isabelle was moved to another museum.  This was where the Nazis would store art that had been taken from the family homes when people were sent to camps.  She devised a way to code all of the pictures to help facilitate the art being returned to the rightful owners after the war.  She knew that if her secret book was discovered, she would face death.  The other important person is Brigitte whose husband had been killed early in the war.  He was an artist and she wanted to get back his most famous painting for their daughter, Sophie,  to own after the war.  She worked with Isabelle and her work also put her life in jeopardy.

The present-day timeline is about Esther.  She is recently divorced and working hard to raise two young boys.  She gets a call from an art historian in Paris who asks her to come to Paris to claim a painting that had just been discovered behind a wall in an apartment that had been owned by her grandmother. Her mother, Sophie, has Alzheimer's and is unable to give any additional detail about the painting so she goes to Paris and is amazed at the painting that has been found.  The painting helps her learn more about her family history and shows the effect of the past on the present.  As with many dual-timeline novels, one time is more interesting than the other.  In this book, the WWII timeline was definitely more interesting and exciting than the present day which was pretty unbelievable in parts.  Overall it was a well-written and well-researched book that showed the strength and bravery of the women who were working to save Parisian art no matter how much danger it put them in.   This is the first book in a new series and I'm looking forward to book two - The Bookseller of Paris to read more about the bravery of women during the war.

Buy The Last Day in Paris at Amazon

The Bookseller of Paris by Suzanne Kelman

July 2024; Bookouture; 978-1837905300
audio, ebook, print (370 pages); historical fiction

The second book in The Paris Sisters series is about saving books from being destroyed when the Germans invaded Paris.  The main character, Madeline, is based on Adele Kibre who smuggled over 3,000 reels of microfilm and other written material across enemy lines and risked her life on a daily basis to accomplish her goal.

Madeline Valette is the owner of a small bookstore in Paris.  Her beloved husband has recently died and the bookstore that they owned helps get her through the long days without him.  When the Germans invade Paris, life changes dramatically.  She's given a list of banned books to remove from her store. When she's asked to join the Resistance to smuggle banned books from Berlin, she accepts, desperate to defy the Nazis. Because she still has an American passport, she can travel to Germany with no problems.  Not only is she desperate to get books out of Germany but she has a personal goal as well.  She received a letter from a woman claiming to be her husband's first wife and the mother of his only child.  She never knew that her husband had a child but she vows to get him out of Germany to a safe place.  She places her life in danger during every trip she makes to Germany and as the war continues, her trips become even more difficult.  Will she find her husband's son and get him to safety?

Olivia is the main character in the present-day timeline.  She works with old books and when she's at an auction, she finds a book with pictures of her grandmother in the back of the book.  She feels a strong need to find out why her grandmother's pictures are there, despite her mother telling her not to look into it.  Her grandfather is estranged from the rest of the family but she contacts him to find out more information which he is very reluctant to disclose.  As in the first book, the World War II timeline is much more interesting and exciting than the present-day timeline but they both work well together to show the effect that the past has on the future.  This is another well-written and well-researched novel and I am looking forward to the next book in the series.

Buy The Bookseller of Paris at Amazon

The Hidden Book by Kirsty Manning

August 2024; William Morrow; 978-0063389182
audio, ebook, print (304 pages); historical fiction

This dual timeline book takes place in 1940 in the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria and the nearby town.  The modern timeline takes place in Australia.  The World War II timeline is based on a true story of a WWII European album of pictures from the camp that brought down war criminals and traveled through history and was found in an Australian country shed in 2019.

In Mauthausen concentration camp, a young Spanish prisoner is ordered to process images of the camp and inmates for a handful of photo books being made for presentation to top Nazi figures. Just five books in total, or so the officials think ...In reality, he makes a sixth book so that when the war is over, the world can see the truth of what went on at the camp.  With the help of a local woman, the pictures are hidden until the end of the war.  Lena and her family live near the camp and see the prisoners walking to work every day.  Her family is very worried because Lena's younger sister has seizures and the Nazis are notorious for putting people who are not mentally healthy into the camps.  Even though she is working to protect her sister, she agrees to help hide the pictures.  At the end of the war, she is told who to give the pictures to and they were ultimately used at the Nuremberg war trials to help convict some of the camp leaders.

In Australia, Hannah lives with her mother.  When her grandfather visits from Yugoslavia, he brings the book to Hannah's mother for safekeeping.  Hannah wants to see the book but her mother forbids her from seeing it and keeps it hidden.  Over the years, Hannah repeatedly asks her mother for the book and her mother continues to refuse.  Hannah ends up planning to do her PhD thesis on the concentration camps but then she meets someone and falls in love.  But the book and her beloved Grandfather's life in the concentration are never too far from her mind.   

This is a beautifully written and well-researched book.  Once again, I enjoyed reading the World War Two timeline in the book more than I did the present day.  Hannah was a difficult character to like.  Even though she was extremely focused on her grandfather and his life, I thought that she treated her mother terribly.  The World War II timeline showed the bravery not just of Lena but also of the photographer and his helpers who managed to smuggle the pictures out of the camp.  With all of the books that I've read during this era, I never read about the pictures and their use at the war trials after the war.  If you enjoy historical fiction from this era, you don't want to miss this book.  

Buy The Hidden Book at Amazon

A Place to Hide by Ronald H. Balson

September 2024; St. Martin's Press; 978-1250282484
audio, ebook, print (304 pages); historical fiction

A Place to Hide explores the deeply-moving actions of an ordinary man who resolves, under perilous circumstances, to make a difference. 

This remarkable and well-researched novel takes place in the Netherlands before and during WWII. Several of the secondary characters are based on real people who risked their lives to save the Jewish people during the war.  The author, who previously won the National Jewish Book Award,  gives his readers an engrossing story but also provides interesting information on the belief of the local citizens who felt that since they were a neutral county, Germany would not invade them and if they did, the Dutch would be treated well. 

Teddy is the son of a rich American family who got him a comfortable job with the US State Department with the thought that a job as a diplomat would give him a lot of leverage on higher-level jobs in the future.  Surprisingly he is re-assigned to the US Consulate in Amsterdam.  His father thinks that it will be a good move for him but his fiancé refuses to accompany him to his new post and wants him to turn the job down.  When he arrives at his new location he is assigned the job of processing Visa applications.  The year is 1939 and refugees from the east - especially Poland and Austria - that have been invaded by the Germans are desperate to get to the safety of America.  However, the US government has strict quotas about how many visas they will issue for each country, and many people are put on a waiting list or turned away.  The people in Amsterdam believe that their neutrality will keep them safe but when their government falls, they quickly have to deal with new laws that threaten the lives of their Jewish citizens.  As life gets more difficult for the Dutch, they begin to form resistance groups to fight against their German invaders.  Teddy quickly realizes that his position at the consulate can help save some of the Jewish children and gets involved in the resistance along with his girlfriend, Sarah.  It's very dangerous for both of them since Sarah is Jewish.  But the ability to save even one life makes it important to both of them.

The entire story of Teddy's life is told during interviews with a Dutch reporter who is trying to find her long-lost sister that she hadn't seen since the beginning of the war.  Even though Teddy was 92 years old and in poor health, he wanted Kayn to write his history to share with his grandchildren who had no idea what he'd done during the war.

This was an inspiring story about people who risked their lives to help their neighbors.  It would have been very easy for Teddy to return to the US when the consulate closed but he was brave enough to stay and try to help other people.  If you read WWII fiction, this is another book that you don't want to miss.

NOTE:  140,000 Jews were living in the Netherlands when the country was invaded by Germany in May 1940. By the summer of 1943, most of the Jews in the Netherlands had been deported. By the time the last transport left in September 1944, a total of 107,000 Jews had been deported to the extermination camps. Only 5,000 of them returned after the war. More than 75% of Dutch Jews perished in the Holocaust.

Buy A Place to Hide at Amazon

Susan Roberts grew up in Michigan but loves the laid-back life at her home in the Piedmont area of North Carolina where she is two hours from the beach to the east and the mountains in the west.  She reads almost anything but her favorite genres are Southern Fiction and Historical Fiction.   

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