World War II Historical Fiction Books

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Orphan comes an unforgettable historical novel about a secret collection of Dior gowns that ties back to the first female pilots of WWII and a heartbreaking story of love and sacrifice.

Physicist Dr. Hannah Weiss thinks she is close to splitting the atom, which would be the biggest discovery of the 20th century. But as a Jewish woman in Germany, she is ignored, and her work is stolen by her colleagues. Years later, in New Mexico, Major Jack Delaney arrives to catch the spy sending Hitler's scientists secrets from the nuclear lab at Los Alamos. All signs point to the mysterious Hannah Weiss, but is it true?

This is a beautiful, heart-squeezing novel about twin sisters Hana and Kei, who are raised by their single mother in Hawaii in the 1950s and 1960s, and how the horrors of Hiroshima and the Japanese internment camps many years before still destroy the peace of their lives.

Get the tissues ready for this moving story of sisters Etty and Dorothy, who were abandoned at an orphanage by their mother and grew up with only each other to depend on. But years later, World War II changes their lives and their living situation, and reveals a painful secret about their past.

This fabulous novel actually covers a whole century in the life of a Korean family, starting in the early 1900s, when a young pregnant girl marries a minister and moves to Japan. But it is also an excellent and often unmentioned look at how Korean immigrants were horribly treated in Japan before and during the wars.

And this novel is inspired by a real-life heroine! Nancy Wake was living a happy life with her fiancé in France when the Nazis took over Paris. Choosing to fight from home, she joins the underground Resistance and assumes the name "White Mouse," quickly becoming one of the Nazi's most-wanted French citizens. But when her husband is arrested in her place, will she risk everything to save him, or continue carrying out her missions for her country?

All of Kate Atkinson's war novels are unbelievably excellent. This most recent one is about a young transcriptionist who works for the British government during the war, and a decade later, finds the ghosts of her past have caught up with her where she works as a BBC radio producer.

This thrilling spy novel is about five young Americans who are recruited for various talents and placed in Nazi Germany at the height of World War II. Their group is called Dragonfly, and they must stay one step ahead of the enemies if they want to return home safely. But a mistake turns deadly and has them questioning if they really will get back home.