Showing titles in 20th Century

In Second World War Bath, young, naïve wireless engineer Will meets Austrian refugee Elsa Klein: she is sophisticated, witty and worldly, and at last his life seems to make sense . . . until, soon after, the couple's home is bombed, and Will awakes from the blast to find himself alone. No one has heard of Elsa Klein. They say she never existed.

An addictive cosy historical murder mystery, perfect for fans of Verity Bright Wartime secrets, smugglers’ caves, skeletal remains... And the holiday’s only just begun… Summer, 1923. Reporter Iris Woodmore travels to sunny Devon with her friends Percy Baverstock and Millicent Nightingale...

Paris, 1963. Behind Severine Kassel's carefully crafted image as the Louvre's most respected jewellery curator lies a woman haunted by unspeakable trauma. When she's invited to London to authenticate a collection of rare Byzantine pearls, her composed facade finally cracks. These are not just any pearls – they belong to her family, stolen in an act of unimaginable cruelty two decades earlier. Her shocking revelation sets off a frenzied hunt for former Nazi officer Ruda Mayek.

Tuscany, 1943. Stranded in war-ravaged Italy, Beatrice’s dream of an escapist year teaching English is shattered. Granted shelter at the Villa delle Colombe, she seeks refuge in Francesca and Edoardo’s beautiful walled garden, hidden from the outside world, with an elaborate cypress maze at its heart. But Beatrice is not the only one seeking an escape here. Francesca has brought children to the safety of the house, as well as other adults, all of them seeking sanctuary on the estate with its mysterious maze.

London, 1938. Bookseller Gertie Bingham is facing difficult times, having just lost her beloved husband, Harry, and with a lingering sadness at never having been able to have a child of her own. Struggling to face running the bookshop she and Harry opened together, Gertie is preparing to sell up and move away when she is asked if she would be willing to take in a young Jewish refugee from Germany. Gertie is unsure and when sullen teenager Hedy Fischer arrives, Gertie fears she has nothing left to give the troubled girl. 

As the war approaches its end, Prince once more has to risk everything. Berlin, 1939: a German intelligence officer learns a top agent is quickly moving up the British Army ranks. He bides his time. Arnhem, 1944: British paratroopers have been slaughtered in one of the bloodiest battles of the Second World War. A shell shocked officer is convinced that the Germans knew they were coming. But who betrayed them? Back in London, Richard Prince, detective and spy, is approached by MI5 about a counterintelligence operation. 

Based on the true story of a brave German nurse tasked with caring for Auschwitz’s youngest prisoners, Auschwitz Lullaby brings to life the story of Helene Hannemann—a woman who sacrificed everything for family and fought furiously for the children she hoped to save. On an otherwise ordinary...

A stolen child. A terrible wartime secret. Norway, 1940. Seduced by Nazi propaganda, Liv offers herself to the German High Command as war reaches rural Norway. She has something very special that they want in Berlin - but the personal cost will be terrible. Can she survive what she did as a...

Legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel is revered for her sophisticated style - the iconic little black dress - and famed for her intoxicating perfume Chanel No. 5. Yet behind the public persona is a complicated woman of intrigue, shadowed by mysterious rumors. The Queen of Paris, the new novel from award-winning author Pamela Binnings Ewen, vividly imagines the hidden life of Chanel during the four years of Nazi occupation in Paris in the midst of WWII - as discovered in recently unearthed wartime files.

Chosen for Simon Mayo's Radio 2 Book Club, this is the chilling new ghost story from the bestselling author of Dark Matter. The Himalayas, 1935. Kangchenjunga. Third-highest peak on earth. Greatest killer of them all. Five Englishmen set off from Darjeeling, determined to conquer the sacred...

Romance, intrigue, and dangerous ambitions combine to create the perfect escape: welcome back to the beautiful Hotel Portofino on the magical Italian Riviera. HOTEL PORTOFINO: LOVERS AND LIARS IS OUT NOW! A heady historical drama about a British family who open an upper-class hotel on the...

World War Two casts a dark shadow over the Hammersmith Palais de Danse, but the show must go on... April 1940. Violet Millington, is ready to rediscover the joy of living. As she waltzes into the palais, to begin her new life of boosting morale in war swept London, she must leave her family's...

Spring, 1918. The Great War is at a crucial stage, the Germans are making one last push into France, and the Allies are struggling to hold them back. Battle lines are shifting, and men, and their machines, are being sent up and down the front to shore up defenses. Major Heathcliff Lennox, and his batman Greggs, are told to report to their new HQ. They set off on a sunlit day to fly the distance, but the enemy is never far away, and disaster strikes. They're sent crashing to the ground behind enemy lines, where life, death, and love await.

Brought to you by Penguin. Nick Harkaway's bestselling take on George Smiley is back, and this time the iconic spy is on the trail of a traitor right at the top of American intelligence… It's 1965, and the world lives on a knife edge. After the nuclear standoff in Cuba, and with Vietnam even...

Bloomsbury presents The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows, read by Charlie Norfolk. The beloved, life-affirming international bestseller which has sold over 5 million copies worldwide – now a major film starring Lily James, Matthew Goode, Jessica...

The compelling new bestseller from the author of The Mersey Daughter and Winter on the Mersey. Alice Lake and her friend Edith have had everything thrown at them in their first year as district nurses in London’s East End. From babies born out of wedlock to battered wives, they’ve had plenty...

A secret lies behind every door… The Dordogne, 1936 Amid tangled gardens and crumbling walls, Chateau Rousseau guards its secrets well. Pushing open its faded door, Thirza Caruthers arrives to care for her great-aunt. She's made a promise – unaware of what awaits. As the skies darken above...

Sometimes, the deadliest enemy lies within. It is 1942, and war is raging in Europe. Monika Ritter is in New York with her husband, Michael. Haunted by memories of her childhood in Germany and her father’s death at the hands of the Nazis, she longs to do her bit against Hitler’s rampaging armies. When Michael joins the new Army Air Force as a bomber pilot, Monika takes advantage of an invitation she receives to join the OSS, a fledgling group of spies with the mission to turn the war by gathering the most vital asset of all—information.

The phenomenal new novel, based on a true story, from the multimillion-copy bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Cilka's Journey and Three Sisters. 1942. Singapore is falling to the Japanese Army. English musician Norah Chambers places her eight-year-old daughter Sally on a ship...

Hiding in the horror of Warsaw's Jewish Ghetto with his family, scientist Roman Loszynski has a secret: a means of making aerial bombing raids frighteningly accurate. Codenamed Tatra, it could change the course of the war. With British agent Jack Miller now in Switzerland, back in Berlin undercover spy Sophia von Naundorf is determined to escape Germany come what may.