Blitz-ridden London: Marnie Fern's life is torn apart when her grandfather is killed in an air raid. But once she discovers that he'd been working undercover as a radio operative - or pianist - for the Dutch resistance, Marnie knows she must complete his mission - no matter the cost. Nazi-occupied Amsterdam: At the other end of the wireless, fellow pianist Corrie Bakker is caught in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse as she desperately tries to keep...

"By fall of 1863, Union forces had taken control of Tidewater Virginia and established a toehold in eastern North Carolina, including along the Outer Banks. Thousands of freed slaves and runaways flooded the Union lines, but Confederate irregulars still roamed the region. In December, the newly formed African Brigade, a unit of these former slaves led by General Edward Augustus Wild--a one-armed, impassioned abolitionist--set out from Portsmouth to...

"Eva Traube Abrams, a semi-retired librarian in Florida, is shelving books one morning when her eyes lock on a photograph in a magazine lying open nearby. She freezes; it's an image of a book she hasn't seen in sixty-five years--a book she recognizes as The Book of Lost Names. The accompanying article discusses the looting of libraries by the Nazis across Europe during World War II--an experience Eva remembers well--and the search to reunite people...

"1942. Hannah Martel has narrowly escaped Nazi Germany. When her ship bound for America is turned away at port, she has nowhere to go but to her cousin Lily in Brussels. Fearful for her life, Hannah is desperate to get out of occupied Europe. But with no safe way to leave, she must return to the dangerous underground work she thought she had left behind. Seeking help, Hannah joins the Sapphire Line, a secret resistance network. But when a grave mistake...

Alfa Ndiaye is a Senegalese man who, never before having left his village, finds himself fighting as a so-called "Chocolat" soldier with the French army during World War I. When his friend Mademba Diop, in the same regiment, is seriously injured in battle, Diop begs Alfa to kill him and spare him the pain of a long and agonizing death in No Man's Land. Unable to commit this mercy killing, madness creeps into Alfa's mind as he comes to see this refusal...

Provides a fictional account of the horrific desert concentration camps in which King Hassan II of Morocco held his political enemies and the inhumane conditions in which survivors lived. Author Ben Jelloun worked closely with one of the survivors to create this fictionalized account, resulting in a novel that explores both the limitlessness of inhumanity and the impossible endurance of the human will. Crafting real life events into narrative fiction,...

New York City/Paris, 1942: When American model Jessica May arrives in Europe to cover the war as a photojournalist for Vogue, most of the soldiers are determined to make her life as difficult as possible. But three friendships change that. Journalist Martha Gellhorn encourages Jess to bend the rules. Captain Dan Hallworth keeps her safe in dangerous places so she can capture the stories that truly matter. And most important of all, the love of a little...

September 1940, as German bombs fall on Britain, fears grow of an impending invasion. Since losing her parents as a child, Susan Shepherd has raised homing pigeons with her grandfather, Bertie. All her birds are extraordinary to Susan, but none more so than Duchess, with whom she shares a special bond. When a young pilot named Ollie Evans travels to Britain to join the Royal Air Force, his quest brings him to the National Pigeon Service, where Susan...

"June, 1950: the North Korean army, a formidable force backed by Soviet arms and training, invades South Korea, with the intent of uniting the country under Communist rule. In response, the United States mobilizes a force to defend the overmatched South Korean troops. But the US is no better equipped than their allies. The American and United nations troops are fighting for their lives against the most brutal weather conditions imaginable, and an...

Voechenka is a city under siege. Decimated by the Battlemage war, its restless dead attack every night, begging the living to join them beyond the grave.