ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF THE SUMMER BY POPSUGAR, FROLIC, PARADE, TRAVEL & LEISURE, SHE KNOWS, and SHE READS! NAMED A REAL SIMPLE BEST BOOK OF 2020 (SO FAR). "Fast Girls is a compelling, thrilling look at what it takes to be a female Olympian in pre-war America...Brava to Elise Hooper for bringing these inspiring heroines to the wide audience they so richly deserve."-Tara Conklin, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Romantics and The House Girl Acclaimed author Elise Hooper explores the gripping, real life history of female athletes, members of the first integrated women's Olympic team, and their journeys to the 1936 summer games in Berlin, Nazi Germany. Perfect for readers who love untold stories of amazing women, such as The Only Woman in the Room, Hidden Figures, and The Lost Girls of Paris. In the 1928 Olympics, Chicago's Betty Robinson competes as a member of the first-ever women's delegation in track and field. Destined for further glory, she returns home feted as America's Golden Girl until a nearly-fatal airplane crash threatens to end everything. Outside of Boston, Louise Stokes, one of the few black girls in her town, sees competing as an opportunity to overcome the limitations placed on her. Eager to prove that she has what it takes to be a champion, she risks everything to join the Olympic team. From Missouri, Helen Stephens, awkward, tomboyish, and poor, is considered an outcast by her schoolmates, but she dreams of escaping the hardships of her farm life through athletic success. Her aspirations appear impossible until a chance encounter changes her life. These three athletes will join with others to defy society's expectations of what women can achieve. As tensions bring the United States and Europe closer and closer to the brink of war, Betty, Louise, and Helen must fight for the chance to compete as the fastest women in the world amidst the pomp and pageantry of the Nazi-sponsored 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

Yona has used her knowledge of the wilderness to help hundreds of Jews escape the Nazis. But what happens when a secret from her past emerges and threatens everything? After being stolen from her wealthy German parents and raised in the unforgiving wilderness of eastern Europe, a young woman finds herself alone in 1941 after her kidnapper dies. Her solitary existence is interrupted, however, when she happens upon a group of Jews fleeing the Nazi terror. Stunned to learn what's happening in the outside world, she vows to teach the group all she can about surviving in the forest - and in turn, they teach her some surprising lessons about opening her heart after years of isolation. But when she is betrayed and escapes into a German-occupied village, her past and present come together in a shocking collision that could change everything. Praise for Kristin Harmel: 'A powerful story of survival and resilience. I couldn't put it down' - Heather Morris 'A cracking story and characters that zing from the page. Totally immersive' - Liz Trenow

As featured on BBC Radio 4 Good Reads 'A timely, bittersweet comic novel' Guardian ____________________ What do you do next, after you've changed the world? It is 1928. Matilda Simpkin, rooting through a cupboard, comes across a small wooden club - an old possession of hers, unseen for more than a decade. Mattie is a woman with a thrilling past and a chafingly uneventful present. During the Women's Suffrage Campaign she was a militant. Jailed five times, she marched, sang, gave speeches, smashed windows and heckled Winston Churchill, and nothing - nothing - since then has had the same depth, the same excitement. Now in middle age, she is still looking for a fresh mould into which to pour her energies. Giving the wooden club a thoughtful twirl, she is struck by an idea - but what starts as a brilliantly idealistic plan is derailed by a connection with Mattie's militant past, one which begins to threaten every principle that she stands for. Old Baggage is a funny and bittersweet portrait of a woman who has never, never given up the fight. ____________________ 'Essential . . . Evans is a brilliant storyteller' Stylist

The Stasi and MI6 clash in this gripping Cold War crime thriller, from the award-winning author of Stasi Child. ______________________ Dresden, East Germany, 1980 - A man's body is found buried in concrete at a building site in the new town district. When People's Police homicide captain Karin Muller arrives at the scene, she discovers that all of the body's identifiable features have been removed - including its fingertips. The deeper Muller digs, the more the Stasi begin to hamper her investigations. She soon realises that this crime is just one part of a clandestine battle between two secret services - the Stasi of East Germany and Britain's MI6 - to control the truth behind one of the deadliest events of World War II. The Stasi Game brilliantly fictionalises the true story of how Britain's wartime leaders justifed the fire-bombing of German city of Dresden, which many have since condemned as a war crime.

Johnny Vince's next mission: to track and locate the Sumatra tiger poachers' stronghold; relatively easy for an ex-Special Forces, or so his boss said. With a truly strange turn of events, Johnny is emerged into a world that not even the complex himself can prepare to fathom. Even with Johnny's Elite skills, can he take this young, new squad into the hornets' nest with little knowledge and weaponry? You want action, adventure, and emotions-is the edge of your seat ready? After the success of Richard's two Johnny Vince novels, Operation Blue Halo and Operation Last Assault, finally, the much awaited next Johnny Vince life chapter and mission is here.

Soon to be a major television event from Pascal Pictures, starring Tom Holland. Based on the true story of a forgotten hero, the USA Today and #1 Amazon Charts bestseller Beneath a Scarlet Sky is the triumphant, epic tale of one young man's incredible courage and resilience during one of history's darkest hours. Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He's a normal Italian teenager-obsessed with music, food, and girls-but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior. In an attempt to protect him, Pino's parents force him to enlist as a German soldier-a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler's left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich's most mysterious and powerful commanders. Now, with the opportunity to spy for the Allies inside the German High Command, Pino endures the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation by fighting in secret, his courage bolstered by his love for Anna and for the life he dreams they will one day share. Fans of All the Light We Cannot See, The Nightingale, and Unbroken will enjoy this riveting saga of history, suspense, and love.

A SUNDAY TIMES, NEW STATESMAN AND SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR

'Vivid, illuminating and unbearably tense ... A masterly meditation on trauma, on beauty, on the idea of home and the limits of love' Guardian

Charlie's experiences at the Battle of Kohima and the months he spent lost in the remote jungles of Nagaland during the Second World War are now history. Home and settled on a farm in Norfolk and newly married to Claire, he is one of the lucky survivors. Starting a family and working the land seem the best things a man can be doing.

But a chasm exists between them. Memories flood Charlie's mind; at night, on rain-slicked roads and misty mornings in the fields, the past can feel more real than the present. Though hidden even to himself, the darkest secrets of Charlie's adventures in the strange and shadowy ridges of the Nagaland mountains, his dream-like encounters with the mysterious and ancient tribesmen, leak and bleed through his consciousness. What should be said and what left unsaid? Is it possible to forge a new life in the wake of unfathomable horror?

A beautifully conceived, deftly controlled and delicately wrought meditation on the isolating impact of war, the troubling legacies of colonialism and the inescapable reach of the past, Georgina Harding's haunting, lyrical novel questions the very nature of survival, and what it is that the living owe the dead.

From the master storyteller, Ken Follett, Hornet Flight is a startling thriller set amidst the Danish Resistance.

Europe in Darkness

1941. The Nazis have Denmark in their vice-like grip, their malign presence corroding everything its inhabitants hold dear. Even the police betray their countrymen and work with the Gestapo to hunt down spies.

A Glimmer of Hope

In this hostile climate the Danish resistance discover a secret that could change the course of the war – proof of an advanced German radar installation that is causing catastrophic losses to Allied planes bringing the fight to Germany.

A Dangerous Mission

The resistance must get the information to the British and will have only one chance, using a near-derelict Hornet Moth bi-plane mouldering away in a church. If they succeed the balance of the war will be tipped in the Allies’ favour but failure will see them killed . . .

'Immersive' Guardian 'Stunning' Daily Express 'Riveting' Telegraph Victory is close. Vengeance is closer. Rudi Graf used to dream of sending a rocket to the moon. Instead, he has helped to create the world's most sophisticated weapon: the V2 ballistic missile, capable of delivering a one-ton warhead at three times the speed of sound. In a desperate gamble to avoid defeat in the winter of 1944, Hitler orders ten thousand to be built. Graf is tasked with firing these lethal 'vengeance weapons' at London. Kay Caton-Walsh is an officer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force who joins a unit of WAAFs on a mission to newly liberated Belgium. Armed with little more than a slide rule and a few equations, Kay and her colleagues will attempt to locate and destroy the launch sites. As the death toll soars, Graf and Kay fight their grim, invisible war - until one final explosion of violence causes their destinies to collide... 'A riveting read with a corker of a twist' Daily Telegraph 'Supremely readable' Observer 'Delivers one hell of a punch' Express 'Captures the real nature of war. Gripping' Ben MacIntyre

There's a traitor in the pack... Who can you trust? The extraordinary final instalment of the Wolf Pack series. June, 1943. In Lyon, the capital of the French resistance, a secret meeting is held under orders from General de Gaulle. The objective is to unite all resistance factions. The future of France is on the line. But when the meeting is raided by the Gestapo under Klaus Barbie, the 'Butcher of Lyon', the plan disintegrates and the leaders are captured. The movement has been betrayed. There is a traitor in Lyon. British undercover agents Jack Miller and Sophia von Naundorf are sent to France. They must find the informer and save the resistance. But the Gestapo is on the hunt. More traitors emerging from the shadows. The net is closing. This unmissable espionage thriller from modern master Alex Gerlis is perfect for readers of Alan Furst, Charles Cumming and Rory Clements.

To what lengths will the British go to smuggle a secret weapon into Nazi Germany? An unmissable Second World War thriller from bestseller Alex Gerlis.'Absorbing ... Gerlis directs his cast with verve' Financial Times 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. As the RAF look to destroy the Ruhr through its bombing raids, Barnaby Allen and British intelligence will need everything Jack and Sophia have to help find, test and deploy these devices. But that will mean getting Loszynski out of Poland, and themselves re-entering the Reich. Both seem, on the face of it, impossible, desperate missions filled with danger. Every second a chance for discovery. Every second a moment of peril. An intense and unputdownable espionage thriller from modern master Alex Gerlis, this is perfect for readers of Robert Harris, Charles Cumming and Rory Clements.

Leningrad 1941: the white nights of summer illuminate a city of fallen grandeur whose beautiful palaces and stately avenues speak of a different age, when Leningrad was known as St. Petersburg.

Two sisters, Tatiana and Dasha, share the same bed, living in one room with their brother and parents. It is a hard, impoverished life, yet the Metanovs know many who are not as fortunate as they.

The family routine is shattered on 22 June 1941 when Hitler invades Russia. For the Metanovs, for Leningrad and for Tatiana, life will never be the same again. On that fateful day, Tatiana meets a brash young officer named Alexander.

Tatiana and her family suffer as Hitler's army advances on Leningrad, and the Russian winter closes in. With bombs falling and the city under siege, Tatiana and Alexander are drawn to each other in an impossible love. It is a love that could tear Tatiana's family apart, a love that carries a secret that could mean death for anyone who hears it.

Confronted on one hand by Hitler's unstoppable war machine, and on the other by a Soviet system determined to crush the human spirit, Tatiana and Alexander are pitted against the very tide of history, at a turning point in the century that made the modern world.

Book Three in the gorgeous Girls in Blue series by bestselling author Fenella J. Miller London, 1942: Charlotte Fenimore is back home on a week's leave from the Women's Auxiliary Airforce. She had planned for a week of rest and recuperation. She hadn't planned to fall deeply in love with an irascible detective called Dan Chalmers, a severely wounded hero of Dunkirk who believed no woman would ever look at him again. DI Chalmers is in London to arrest a gang of dangerous East End criminals and root out corrupt police detectives at the Met - and his involvement with Charlotte brings her into serious danger. And then the plane flying Charlotte to the wilds of Scotland comes down in a storm... In a time of war, with danger around every corner, how can their relationship survive? READERS LOVE FENELLA J. MILLER! 'I loved this book from beginning to end' 'A brilliant story that got you gripped to every page' 'I can't wait for the next installment' 'I have loved all three of these books, I do hope there wil be more' 'A great read - I couldn't put it down'

Discover Rosie Clarke's bestselling Blackberry Farm series! A story of life and survival during the war which is heart-rending and bitter-sweet, bringing you laughter and tears. Cambridgeshire - 1941 As the war rages on in Europe, it brings untold heartache to the Talbot family at Blackberry Farm. First Tom is missing in action and then his brother John. leaving the family distraught with worry. Faith finds herself in trouble and turns to Lizzie for support as fear and grief bring them closer together. But tragedy is never too far away and when it strikes, it may not be those who fight that suffer the most. Will Pam's prayers be answered and will both her sons return home? And can the family at Blackberry Farm unite to overcome their heartache and find hope for the future?

As a young bride-to-be navigates the days before her wedding, three generations of women come together in a page-turning novel full of family secrets, heartwrenching drama, and a second chance at the love of a lifetime. Joey Abrams is trying to find herself. After quitting a career in big law, she's now a struggling artist. Yet she's found the nice Jewish boy of her dreams, so she thinks she may finally be on the right path. But the secrets Joey's been keeping about her family may just destroy the life she's so carefully building. Joey's mother is planning an extravagant wedding as if her life depends on it, and as if she knows a thing about happily ever after. But Joey knows better. Her parents' marriage isn't what it seems, and Joey's relationship with her mother is straining at the seams. And her beloved grandmother, always Joey's touchstone and confidant, is suddenly acting strange, talking for the first time about her time in Greece during the war. Is this the beginnings of dementia? Or is her grandmother keeping secrets of her own? As Joey navigates the days leading up to her wedding, the one person she thought she'd never see again appears. Her first love, back to remind her of the pact they made over a decade ago, one that could blow wide Joey's plans for her future, and leave her family in ruins.