Take a step back in time and slip into these characters’ shoes for a day. Think lockdown is hard? These books are sure to give you a reality check.
A Thousand Moons, by Sebastian Barry
Even when you come out of the bloodshed and disaster, in the end you have got to learn to live. Winona is a young Lakota orphan adopted by former soldiers Thomas McNulty and John Cole. Living with Thomas and John on the farm they work in 1970s Tennesee, she is educated and loved, forging a life for herself beyond the violence and dispossession of her past. But the fragile harmony of her unlikely family unit, in the aftermath of the Civil War, is soon threatened by a further traumatic event, one which Winona struggles to confront, let alone understand. Told in Sebastian Barry’s gorgeous, lyrical prose, A Thousand Moons is a powerful, moving study of one woman’s journey, of her determination to write her own future and of the enduring human capacity for love.
The Mirror and the Light, by Hilary Mantel
The long-awaited sequel to Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, and the stunning conclusion to Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall trilogy.
England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with victors.
Cromwell is a man with only his wits to rely on, he has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future.
The Yellow Bird Sings, by Jennifer Rosner
A powerfully gripping and deeply moving debut novel about the unbreakable bond between parent and child.
Poland, 1941. After the Jews in their town are rounded up, Róza and her five-year-old daughter, Shira, spend day and night hidden in a farmer’s barn. Forbidden from making a sound, only the yellow bird from her mother’s stories can sing the melodies Shira composes in her head.
Róza does all she can to take care of Shira and shield her from the horrors of the outside world. They play silent games and invent their own sign language. But then the day comes when their haven is no longer safe, and Róza must face an impossible choice: whether to keep her daughter close by her side, or give her the chance to survive by letting her go.
Finding Clara, by Anika Scott
Clara Falkenberg was brought up to become Germany’s most illustrious heiress – her father a captain of industry; her mother the perfect society wife. Now, with the Second World War over, her past and her country in ruins, Clara has nothing but a false identity card and a set of urgent questions. Who has survived? Where will she go? And who has she become?
Essen, Germany 1946. Clara. Once heiress to the Falkenberg ironworks and a bright star in German high society; now on the run from the Allied authorities, accused of complicity in war crimes.
Jakob. A charming black-marketeer doing what he can to provide for what’s left of his family, determined to survive in the wreckage left by the Nazi collapse.
Willy. Thirteen years old and diligently guarding a mine full of Wehrmacht supplies, his only company a canary named Gertrude. Convinced the war isn’t over, he refuses to give up his post.
When Clara returns to her hometown expecting to find her best friend, shefinds everything she once knew in ruins. But in war-ravaged Germany, it’s not just the buildings that are scarred: everyone is changed, everyone carries guilt.
To survive, Clara must hide who she is; but to live, she must face up to the truth of what she’s done.
Hitler’s Secret, by Rory Clements
Autumn 1941. If the tide is going to be turned against Hitler, a new weapon is desperately needed. Posing as a German-American industrialist, Cambridge history professor Tom Wilde is asked to help smuggle a mysterious package out of Nazi Germany. He soon discovers the shocking truth about the ‘package’, and why the Nazis will stop at nothing to prevent it leaving Germany. The truth he has discovered must remain hidden, even if it means betraying the country he loves.
The Narrow Land, by Christine Dwyer Hickey
The stunning new novel from the bestselling author of Last Train from Liguria. 1950: summering on Cape Cod, two young boys form an unlikely friendship with the artists Jo and Edward Hopper.
1950: late summer season on Cape Cod. Michael, a ten-year-old boy, is spending the summer with Richie and his glamorous but troubled mother. Left to their own devices, the boys meet a couple living – the artists Jo and Edward Hopper – and an unlikely friendship is forged.
She, volatile, passionate and often irrational, suffers bouts of obsessive sexual jealousy. He, withdrawn and unwell, depressed by his inability to work, becomes besotted by Richie’s frail and beautiful Aunt Katherine who has not long to live – an infatuation he shares with young Michael.
A novel of loneliness and regret, the legacy of World War II and the ever-changing concept of the American Dream.
