A PopSugar Best Book of the Year! Readers of Heather Morris's The Tattooist of Auschwitz and watchers of The Queen's Gambit won't want to miss this amazing debut set during World War II. A young Polish resistance worker, imprisoned in Auschwitz as a political prisoner, plays chess in exchange for her life, and in doing so fights to bring the man who destroyed her family to justice. Maria Florkowska is many things: daughter, avid chess player, and, as a member of the Polish underground resistance in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, a young woman brave beyond her years. Captured by the Gestapo, she is imprisoned in Auschwitz, but while her family is sent to their deaths, she is spared. Realizing her ability to play chess, the sadistic camp deputy, Karl Fritzsch, decides to use her as a chess opponent to entertain the camp guards. However, once he tires of exploiting her skills, he has every intention of killing her. Befriended by a Catholic priest, Maria attempts to overcome her grief, vows to avenge the murder of her family, and plays for her life. For four grueling years, her strategy is simple: Live. Fight. Survive. By cleverly provoking Fritzsch's volatile nature in front of his superiors, Maria intends to orchestrate his downfall. Only then will she have a chance to evade the fate awaiting her and see him punished for his wickedness. As she carries out her plan and the war nears its end, she challenges her former nemesis to one final game, certain to end in life or death, in failure or justice. If Maria can bear to face Fritzsch-and her past-one last time.

After WWII, a small Italian town struggles to emerge from under the thumb of Fascism. With wit, tenderness, and irony, Elsa, the novel's narrator, weaves a rich tapestry of provincial Italian life: two generations of neighbors and relatives, their gossip and shattered dreams, their heartbreaks and struggles to find happiness. Elsa wants to imagine a future for herself, free from the expectations and burdens of her town's history, but the weight of the past will always prove unbearable, insistently posing the question: "Why has everything been ruined?"

Winner of the 2017 Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award 'Ian McEwan did this with Atonement, Sarah Waters did it with The Night Watch, and Chris Cleave does it too with Everyone Brave is Forgiven... A compelling and finely crafted novel.' FT An extraordinary story of love and honour in extreme circumstances, from the multi-award-winning author of THE OTHER HAND. Instant New York Times bestseller Evening Standard top ten bestseller iBooks BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2016 Irish Times summer reading pick 'A cracker' Stylist, 10 Exciting Books in 2016 'His best book to date' Esquire, 10 best novels of 2016 Guardian Literary Highlight of 2016 Independent Best Book to read in 2016 Irish News Top Picks for 2016 Washington Post 20 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2016 In a powerful combination of both humour and heartbreak, this dazzling novel weaves little-known history, and a perfect love story, through the vast sweep of the Second World War - daring us to understand that, against the great theatre of world events, it is the intimate losses, the small battles, the daily human triumphs, that change us most.

In this quiet and devastating novel about the rise of fascism, Siggi Jepsen, incarcerated as a juvenile delinquent, is assigned to write a routine German lesson on the "The Joys of Duty." Overfamiliar with these joys, Siggi sets down his life since 1943, a decade earlier, when as a boy he watched his father, a constable, doggedly carry out orders from Berlin to stop a well-known Expressionist artist from painting and to seize all his "degenerate" work. Soon Siggi is stealing the paintings to keep them safe from his father. "I was trying to find out," Lenz says, "where the joys of duty could lead a people." Translated from the German by Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins

'Atmospheric and surprising' The Sunday Times 'Cotton's investigating is clever and fascinating' Guardian Book 1 in the Peter Cotton spy thriller series, for fans of John le Carre and Robert Harris. Spain, September 1944. The war in Europe is drawing to a close; formerly neutral Franco is edging closer to the Allies. Peter Cotton, a young Intelligence officer, is sent to investigate the activities. On his arrival, Cotton learns that a fellow British agent, May, has been found dead. May had spent much of the war in the remote outpost of Cadiz, monitoring the Spanish smuggling of raw materials to aid the Axis war efforts. But in the months leading up to his death he had severed all contacts with his London controllers. Cotton travels to Cadiz where he must work with sinister local police inspector Ramirez to investigate May's death. But they are not the only ones with an interest in May. Cadiz is a hotbed of rumours and shifting political alliances. And what Cotton discovers amid the stifling heat and dust could just tilt the emerging balance of post-war power. The Peter Cotton spy thriller series: Book 1: The Maze of Cadiz Book 2: Washington Shadow Book 3: Icelight Book 2: Black Bear Short story: Redeemable

READERS LOVE THE HEARTWARMING SAGAS OF LYN ANDREWS! 5***** 'Loved this book and would recommend it to anyone' AMAZON REVIEWER 5***** 'Filled with lovely characters who try to help each other out in their times of need . . . Couldn't put it down' GOODREADS REVIEWER 5***** 'Absolutely loved this book . . . It won't disappoint' AMAZON REVIEWER 5***** 'Lots of surprises on the way, but still gives the feel good factor' GOODREADS REVIEWER 5***** 'Extremely good book, can't wait for more like it' AMAZON REVIEWER In her nostalgic and heart-warming new saga, Sunday Times bestselling author Lyn Andrews evokes the ups and downs of life in the back streets of 1930s Liverpool Liverpool, 1935. Monica Savage is delighted when new neighbours move in next door, and she and Joan Copperfield quickly become firm friends. While Monica's father has a good job as a guard on the railway, Joan's family are harder up, with her sailor dad Billy mostly off at sea, and restless when he's home - Mersey View is no substitute for the exotic places he sails to. Though money's tight, the Copperfield women are spirited and independent, and it's her friendship with the more confident Joan that gives Monica the courage to challenge her parents and pursue her dream of becoming a hairdresser. Joan is lucky enough to get a job at Crawford's biscuit factory, where she's even allowed to buy broken biscuits cheaply as a perk. But there are dark secrets lurking. When an abandoned child arrives unexpectedly on the Copperfields' doorstep, her arrival will change everything. As war clouds gather, can the girls make their back street dreams reality, or will the families of Mersey View be torn apart? PRAISE FOR SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR, LYN ANDREWS: 'An outstanding storyteller' Woman's Weekly 'Gutsy . . . A vivid picture of a hard-up, hard-working community . . . Will keep the pages turning' Daily Express 'A compelling read' Woman's Own 'She has a realism that is almost palpable' Liverpool Echo 'The Catherine Cookson of Liverpool' Northern Echo

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ROMANTIC NOVELISTS' ASSOCIATION HISTORICAL ROMANTIC NOVEL AWARD A gripping and poignant love story set in a remote village in the Scottish Highlands at the end of the Second World War, from the bestselling author of Water for Elephants. 'The only fault I can find with this book is that I've already finished it' Jodi Picoult 1945. After disgracing themselves at a high society party, spoilt young Philadelphia socialites Maddie and Ellis Hyde are cut off from the family without a penny. Ellis decides their salvation will be to hunt down the Loch Ness Monster, a venture his father very publicly failed at. So, oblivious to WW2 raging around them, they make their way to the Scottish Highlands, where Maddie has to face reality and decide just who the real monsters are. 'Truly enthralling' Scotsman 'Breathtaking' Harper's Bazaar

A remarkable story of struggle and survival in World War II by France's No. 1 bestselling novelist Early in 1942, two young brothers join a Resistance group. All the members of the group are young, most of their families came from elsewhere in Europe or North Africa and all of them are passionately committed to the freedom of France and Europe. They find they are not welcomed by other French groups and thus Brigade 35 is formed. For most of them, their growing up, their falling in love, their sense of friendship and family are formed by their time with the group, and between moments of extreme danger and fear, a lifestyle of a kind of normality develops. But tragedy follows when the brothers are arrested, a number of members of the Brigade 35 are killed and a traitor is suspected. The tensions between former comrades and other Resistance fighters mounts and all this against the desperate hope that the invasion by the allies is really drawing near and will rescue them all.

Shortlisted for the CWA/Ian Fleming Award, The Interrogator is a masterful spy story set in the darkest days of the Second World War. The Enigma Code has been broken - but what if German High Command can read our naval signals, too? For all readers of John le Carre and Robert Harris - 'Terrific... Robert Harris had better watch out' Daily Mail. Spring, 1941. The armies of the Reich are masters of Europe. Britain stands alone, dependent on her battered navy for survival, while Hitler's submarines - his 'grey wolves' - prey on the Atlantic convoys that are the country's only lifeline. Lieutenant Douglas Lindsay is amongst just a handful of men picked up when his ship is torpedoed. Unable to free himself from the memories of that night at sea, he becomes an interrogator with naval intelligence, questioning captured U-Boat crews. He is convinced the Germans have broken British naval codes, but he's a lone voice, a damaged outsider, and his superiors begin to wonder - can he really be trusted when so much is at stake? As the Blitz reduces Britain's cities to rubble and losses at sea mount, Lindsay becomes increasingly isolated and desperate. No one will believe him, not even his lover, Mary Henderson, who works at the very heart of the intelligence establishment. Lindsay decides to risk all in one last throw of the dice, setting a trap for his prize captive - and nemisis - U-Boat Commander Jurgen Mohr, the man who sent his ship to its doom.

Sven Hassel's iconic novel about the Battle for Monte Cassino. The thunder of the guns could be heard in Rome, 170 miles away... Having survived the horrors of the Eastern Front, the 27th Penal Regiment are posted to Italy. Hitler has ordered that every position must be held to the last, and every lost position recaptured by counter-attack. Monte Cassino - a major look-out post on the German defensive line - is under attack. In the face of overwhelming Allied firepower, Sven Hassel and his comrades are ordered to hold the fortress at all costs... MONTE CASSINO is a classic Sven Hassel novel, a no-holds-barred account of frontline combat. Sven Hassel based his unflinching narrative on his experiences in the German army. He ended the Second World War in a prisoner of war camp, where he wrote his first novel LEGION OF THE DAMNED.

It was said that Stalingrad had been burning since August, ever since the first German bombs were dropped...Sven Hassel and his comrades are plunged into the maelstrom of Stalingrad. Radio Moscow reports that one German soldier dies every minute. Trapped by the Russian counter-attack, starving soldiers must resort to cannibalism to survive. But 'Tiny', Porta, the Legionnaire and Sven attempt to break out, to fight their way across the frozen steppe. Their leader: an SS general who takes no prisoners...

THE TIMES '100 BEST SUMMER READS' 'Magnificent' Sunday Times 'Gripping... the twists and intrigue keep coming' Observer 'As ever, Furst vividly evokes a sense of time and place' Mail on Sunday (Must-Read Books of the Year) Occupied Paris, 1942. In the dark, treacherous city, the German occupying forces are everywhere-and so are French resistance fighters, working secretly to defeat Hitler. Just before he dies, a man being chased by the Gestapo hands off a strange-looking document to the unsuspecting novelist Paul Ricard. It looks like a blueprint of a part for a military weapon - one that might have important information for the Allied forces - and Ricard realizes he must try to get it into the hands of members of the resistance network. As he finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into anti-German efforts, Ricard travels deep into enemy territory and along the escape routes of underground resistance safe houses, spying on Nazi maneuvers. And when he meets the mysterious and beautiful Leila, a professional spy, they begin to work together to get crucial information out of France and into the hands of the Allied forces in London. ALAN FURST - The master of the historical spy novel 'Alan Furst is in a class of his own' William Boyd 'Furst is an addiction' The Times 'If you are a John le Carre' fan, this is definitely for you' James Patterson 'Furst's ability to recreate the terrors of espionage is matchless' Robert Harris 'America's preeminent spy novelist' New York Times 'Furst never stops astounding me' Tom Hanks 'How I envy anybody who has not yet discovered Furst's writing' Telegraph

In novels such as Silence, Endo Shusaku examined the persecution of Japanese Christians in different historical eras. Sachiko, set in Nagasaki in the painful years between 1930 and 1945, is the story of two young people trying to find love during yet another period in which Japanese Christians were accused of disloyalty to their country. In the 1930s, two young Japanese Christians, Sachiko and Shuhei, are free to play with American children in their neighborhood. But life becomes increasingly difficult for them and other Christians after Japan launches wars of aggression. Meanwhile, a Polish Franciscan priest and former missionary in Nagasaki, Father Maximillian Kolbe, is arrested after returning to his homeland. Endo alternates scenes between Nagasaki-where the growing love between Sachiko and Shuhei is imperiled by mounting persecution-and Auschwitz, where the priest has been sent. Shuhei's dilemma deepens when he faces conscription into the Japanese military, conflicting with the Christian belief that killing is a sin. With the A-bomb attack on Nagasaki looming in the distance, Endo depicts ordinary people trying to live lives of faith in a wartime situation that renders daily life increasingly unbearable. Endo's compassion for his characters, reflecting their struggles to find and share love for others, makes Sachiko one of his most moving novels.

Berlin, 1989. As the wall between East and West falls, Miriam Winter cares for her dying father, Henryk. When he cries out for someone named Frieda-and Miriam discovers an Auschwitz tattoo hidden under his watch strap-Henryk's secret history begins to unravel. Searching for more clues of her father's past, Miriam finds an inmate uniform from the Ravensbruck women's camp concealed among her mother's things. Within its seams are dozens of letters to Henryk written by Frieda. The letters reveal the disturbing truth about the 'Rabbit Girls', young women experimented on at the camp. And amid their tales of sacrifice and endurance, Miriam pieces together a love story that has been hidden away in Henryk's heart for almost fifty years. Inspired by these extraordinary women, Miriam strives to break through the walls she has built around herself. Because even in the darkest of times, hope can survive.

'This book's power lies in its depiction of civilians trying to lead ordinary lives during the horror of war . . . It is shattering stuff, but Rothmann is tender towards his characters and this book is as memorable as his last.' The Times, 'Historical Fiction Book of the Month' As the Second World War enters its final stages, millions in Germany are forced from their homes by bombing, compelled to seek shelter in the countryside where there are barely the resources to feed them. Twelve-year-old Luisa, her mother, and her older sister Billie have escaped the devastation of the city for the relative safety of a dairy farm. But even here the power struggles of the war play out: the family depend on the goodwill of Luisa's brother-in-law, an SS officer, who in expectation of payment turns his attention away from his wife and towards Billie. Luisa immerses herself in books, but even she notices the Allied bombers flying east above them, the gauntness of the prisoners at the camp nearby, the disappearance of fresh-faced boys from the milk shed - hastily shipped off to a war that's already lost. Living on the farm teaches Luisa about life and death, but it's man's capacity for violence that provides the ultimate lesson, that robs her of her innocent ignorance. When, at a birthday celebration, her worst fears are realized, Luisa collapses under the weight of the inexplicable. Ralf Rothmann's previous novel, To Die in Spring, described the horror of war and the damage done on the battlefield. The God of that Summer tells the devastating story of civilians caught up in the chaos of defeat, of events that might lead a twelve-year-old child to justifiably say: 'I have experienced everything.'

1941, Berlin. After Police Chief Investigator Rolf Schneider is summoned to a meeting with Himmler and tasked with investigating the assassination of Heydrich, he exposes a web of corruption and secrecy involving the highest-ranking figures in the Reich. Schneider is faced with an agonising dilemma, for the secret he discovers is both the only thing that can save his life and what will mark him down for certain death. His choice will propel him into a desperate race against the clock, one in which he literally has to travel to the very heart of darkness to realise his goal.

Set in Morocco and England, a story of espionage, veiled truths and retribution, and how the sins of our forebears haunt the generations of the present.

1936. Newlyweds Beatrice and Gerard Le Tourneau leave France for Morocco and a new life. But as World War Two unfolds and pollutes, their lives become entwined with those around them with devastating results.

Oxford 2002. Nicholas Budgeon, a retired Special Branch detective, learns of his ex-wife's suicide. He finds himself in Morocco, retracing the paths of her ancestors in an effort to uncover the truth and unearthing some nasty surprises along the way.

PRAISE FOR DANIEL EASTERMAN:

'There are shades of Graham Greene in the climate of brooding terror which Easterman conjures so very nicely.'
'Independent'

'He can weave a web of suspense, laced with historical and mythological references that bait the imagination, satisfactorily embroidered with bullet hole and bloodshed.'
'Times'

'A master of spooky suspense and of the chapter cliffhanger.'
'Scotsman'

'A wonderfully crafted masterpiece' Melanie Blake 'A delightful cast of characters' Woman's Weekly Praise for Alex Brown: 'An intriguing story you will love' Jill Mansell 'The cleverly entwined stories kept me turning the pages' Trisha Ashley 'I adored it' Lesley Pearse 'Evocative and engaging ... a story to fall in love with.' Cathy Bramley 'A warm, emotional tale of love, friendship and following your heart.' Milly Johnson 1940: Beatrice Crawford left her safe life in England to nurse the soldiers in the fields of France during the Great war. Once the war was over, she never returned home, and during the darkest days of WW2, her beloved Paris is occupied by the Nazi's. Beatrice must once again do her bit, but who can she trust in this dangerous new world? Present day: Keen to put the spark back into her life, Annie Lovell volunteers to investigate her neighbour's inherited apartment in Paris. There she discovers a bundle of secret diaries hidden within its walls. Captivated by the City of Light, Annie must piece together the events from the past if she is to fulfil the legacy that Beatrice left for her to find...