What was life like for the families left behind when soldiers went to fight in World War II? These novels recreate the home front where families face rationing, air raids, enemy occupation, mobilization and fear. They are available to borrow from the Lititz Public Library.
White Gardenia by Belinda Alexandra
A White Russian, who fled the Revolution for the Manchurian city of Harbin, makes a heartbreaking decision to help her daughter survive the final days of World War II.
The Evening Chorus by Helen Humphreys
A pilot struggles to survive in a German POW camp as his young war bride back in England tries to make sense of her life in the face of the tragedies of World War II.
The Language of the Dead by Stephen Kelly
While the Germans continue their relentless attack, a Detective Inspector investigates the murders of elderly loner, a young woman carrying the illegitimate child of a fighter pilot and a local drunkard.
Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
Sent to a suburb northwest of London to escape the Nazi bombardment, a boy joins a debt-ridden widow in a scheme to make money off the war.
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
A woman faces frightening situations when the Nazis invade France and her home is requisitioned by a German captain.
No Known Grave by Maureen Jennings
A horrible murder is discovered on the grounds of a convalescent hospital established in an old manor house to help victims of the war recover.
The Winter Guest by Pam Jenoff
A woman discovers an American paratrooper stranded outside her small mountain village and risks the safety of her family to hide him.
China Dolls by Lisa See
Everything changes for three young women working in an extravagant all-Asian nightclub revue when the government starts sending people with Japanese heritage to internment camps after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Mrs. Sinclair’s Suitcase by Louise Walters
A decades-old letter reveals the secrets of a forty-year-old, childless woman desperate for motherhood who believes she has found happiness when she encounters a Polish pilot during the early years of World War II.
Villa Triste by Lucretia Grindle
When two sisters are forced to make impossible decisions while living under the brutal Nazi occupation of Italy, their actions set off a chain of events that ultimately impact a murder investigation sixty years later.
I’ll Be Seeing You by Suzanne Hayes and Loretta Nyhan
Two women forge a friendship during World War II through their letters to each other, allowing them to survive the loneliness and uncertainty of waiting on the home front.
The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure
A gifted architect accepts a commission to build a secret hiding place for a wealthy Jewish man, a place so invisible that a determined German officer won’t find it.
The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman
During the last moment of calm before the imminent Nazi invasion of Prague, a young artist and a medical student fall in love.
Letters from Home by Kristina McMorris
In 1944 Chicago, a woman reluctantly agrees to help a friend by ghostwriting a letter to a soldier who is stationed overseas and becomes torn by her feelings for a man who doesn’t know her true identity.
The Distant Hours by Kate Morton
A long-lost letter arriving at its destination fifty years after it was sent lures a woman to the crumbling home of three elderly sisters where her mother was sent to stay as a teenager during World War II.
October 2, 2015