AS BRIGHT AS HEAVEN by Susan Meissner
In 1918, Philadelphia was
a city teeming with promise. Even as its young men went off to fight in
the Great War, there were opportunities for a fresh start on its
cobblestone streets. Into this bustling town, came Pauline Bright and
her husband, filled with hope that they could now give their three
daughters--Evelyn, Maggie, and Willa--a chance at a better life.
But
just months after they arrive, the Spanish Flu reaches the shores of
America. As the pandemic claims more than twelve thousand victims in
their adopted city, they find their lives left with a world that looks
nothing like the one they knew. But even as they lose loved ones, they
take in a baby orphaned by the disease who becomes their single source
of hope. Amidst the tragedy and challenges, they learn what they cannot
live without--and what they are willing to do about it.
As Bright as Heaven
is the compelling story of a mother and her daughters who find
themselves in a harsh world, not of their making, which will either
crush their resolve to survive or purify it.
DUTCH GIRL: AUDREY HEPBURN AND WORLD WAR II by Robert Matzen
Twenty-five years after her passing, Audrey Hepburn remains the most
beloved of all Hollywood stars, known as much for her role as UNICEF
ambassador as for films like
Roman Holiday and
Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Several biographies have chronicled her stardom, but none has covered
her intense experiences through five years of Nazi occupation in the
Netherlands.
According to her son, Luca Dotti, "The war made my mother
who she was."
Audrey Hepburn's war included participation in the Dutch Resistance,
working as a doctor's assistant during the "Bridge Too Far" battle of
Arnhem, the brutal execution of her uncle, and the ordeal of the Hunger
Winter of 1944.
She also had to contend with the fact that her father
was a Nazi agent and her mother was pro-Nazi for the first two years of
the occupation. But the war years also brought triumphs as Audrey became
Arnhem's most famous young ballerina.
Audrey's own reminiscences, new interviews with people who knew her
in the war, wartime diaries, and research in classified Dutch archives
shed light on the riveting, untold story of Audrey Hepburn under fire in
World War II.
Also included is a section of color and black-and-white photos. Many
of these images are from Audrey's personal collection and are published
here for the first time.
THE AMBASSADOR'S DAUGHTER by Pam Jenoff
For one woman in the aftermath of World War I, the City of Light harbors dark secrets and dangerous liaisons.
Paris,
1919. Margot Rosenthal has arrived in France with her father, a German
diplomat. She initially resents being trapped in the congested capital,
where she is still considered the enemy. But as she contemplates
returning to Berlin and a life she hardly knows anymore, she decides
that being in Paris is not so bad after all.
Bored and torn
between duty and the desire to be free, Margot strikes up unlikely
alliances: with Krysia, an accomplished musician with radical
acquaintances and a secret to protect; and with Georg, a naval officer
who gives Margot a job—and a reason to question everything she thought
she knew about where her true loyalties should lie.
Against the
backdrop of one of the most significant events of the century, a
delicate web of lies obscures the line between the casualties of war and
of the heart, making trust a luxury that no one can afford.
THE LOST GIRLS OF PARIS by Pam Jenoff
1946, Manhattan
One morning while passing through Grand
Central Terminal on her way to work, Grace Healey finds an abandoned
suitcase tucked beneath a bench. Unable to resist her own curiosity,
Grace opens the suitcase, where she discovers a dozen photographs—each
of a different woman. In a moment of impulse, Grace takes the
photographs and quickly leaves the station.
Grace soon learns
that the suitcase belonged to a woman named Eleanor Trigg, leader of a
network of female secret agents who were deployed out of London during
the war. Twelve of these women were sent to Occupied Europe as couriers
and radio operators to aid the resistance, but they never returned home,
their fates a mystery. Setting out to learn the truth behind the women
in the photographs, Grace finds herself drawn to a young mother turned
agent named Marie, whose daring mission overseas reveals a remarkable
story of friendship, valor and betrayal.
Vividly rendered and inspired by true events,
New York Times
bestselling author Pam Jenoff shines a light on the incredible heroics
of the brave women of the war and weaves a mesmerizing tale of courage,
sisterhood and the great strength of women to survive in the hardest of
circumstances.
THE FLIGHT GIRLS by Noelle Salazar
1941. Audrey Coltrane has always wanted to fly. It’s why she
implored her father to teach her at the little airfield back home in
Texas. It’s why she signed up to train military pilots in Hawaii when
the war in Europe began. And it’s why she insists she is not interested
in any dream-derailing romantic involvements, even with the disarming
Lieutenant James Hart, who fast becomes a friend as treasured as the
women she flies with. Then one fateful day, she gets caught in the air
over Pearl Harbor just as the bombs begin to fall, and suddenly, nowhere
feels safe.
To make everything she’s lost count for something,
Audrey joins the Women Airforce Service Pilots program. The bonds she
forms with her fellow pilots reignite a spark of hope in the face war,
and—when James goes missing in action—give Audrey the strength to cross
the front lines and fight not only for her country, but for the love she
holds so dear.
THE ALICE NETWORK by Kate Quinn
In an enthralling new historical novel from national
bestselling author Kate Quinn, two women—a female spy recruited to the
real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an
unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947—are
brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption.
1947.
In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie
St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out
of her very proper family. She's also nursing a desperate hope that her
beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the
war, might still be alive. So when Charlie's parents banish her to
Europe to have her "little problem" taken care of, Charlie breaks free
and heads to London, determined to find out what happened to the cousin
she loves like a sister.
1915. A year into the Great War,
Eve Gardiner burns to join the fight against the Germans and
unexpectedly gets her chance when she's recruited to work as a spy. Sent
into enemy-occupied France, she's trained by the mesmerizing Lili, the
"Queen of Spies", who manages a vast network of secret agents right
under the enemy's nose.
Thirty years later, haunted by the
betrayal that ultimately tore apart the Alice Network, Eve spends her
days drunk and secluded in her crumbling London house. Until a young
American barges in uttering a name Eve hasn't heard in decades, and
launches them both on a mission to find the truth...no matter where it
leads.
GIRL IN THE BLUE COAT by Monica Hesse
Amsterdam, 1943. Hanneke spends her days procuring and delivering
sought-after black market goods to paying customers, her nights hiding
the true nature of her work from her concerned parents, and every waking
moment mourning her boyfriend, who was killed on the Dutch front lines
when the Germans invaded. She likes to think of her illegal work as a
small act of rebellion.
On a routine delivery, a client asks Hanneke
for help. Expecting to hear that Mrs. Janssen wants meat or kerosene,
Hanneke is shocked by the older woman's frantic plea to find a
person--a
Jewish teenager Mrs. Janssen had been hiding, who has vanished without a
trace from a secret room. Hanneke initially wants nothing to do with
such dangerous work, but is ultimately drawn into a web of mysteries and
stunning revelations that lead her into the heart of the resistance,
open her eyes to the horrors of the Nazi war machine, and compel her to
take desperate action.
Beautifully written, intricately plotted, and meticulously researched,
Girl in the Blue Coat is an extraordinary novel about bravery, grief, and love in impossible times.
