rachel @ typed truths

An Island Promise by Patricia M Wilson

In 1943, our comfortable family life came to an abrupt end, thanks to Hitler. During the Nazi occupation of Athens, Daphne, a young Greek Jewish artist, finds her life suddenly under threat. She’s in love with her Austrian art teacher, and together they must risk it all to escape his cousin, an SS officer. Pursued across Greece, their journey leads them to the island of Corfu. In 2023 Liverpool, as Daphne’s 100th birthday approaches, she knows time is running out to share her story. Daphne tells Flora, her granddaughter, of a valuable piece of art from her youth. A masterpiece which bought her freedom but cost her.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Antisemitism
Grief & loss depiction
Death of a husband
World War II

Secrets of the Homefront Girls by Kate Thompson

Woman’s Hour Stratford, 1939. Britain may be at war, but on the home front keeping up morale and keeping up appearances go hand in hand. For the young women working on the lipstick production line at Yardley’s cosmetics factory, it’s business as usual. Headstrong Renee Gunn is the queen of the lipstick belt – although her cheeky attitude means she’s often in trouble. When Esther, an Austria Austrian refugee, arrives at Yardley’s, it’s Renee who takes her under her wing and teaches her to be a true cockney. But outside of the factory, things are more complicated. Lily, Renee’s older sister, has suddenly returned home after six,.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Antisemitism
Domestic violence & child abuse mentioned
World War II

The Little Wartime Library by Kate Thompson

London, 1944: Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While war ravages the city above her, Clara has risked everything she holds dear to turn the Bethnal Green tube station into the country’s only underground library. Down here, a secret community thrives with thousands of bunk beds, a nursery, a café, and a theatre—offering shelter, solace, and escape from the bombs that fall upon their city. Along with her glamorous best friend and assistant Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground. But as the war drags on, the women’s determination to remain strong in the face of adversity is tested to… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Period-typical sexism
Domestic violence
Panic attacks & Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Miscarriage
World War II

The Wartime Book Club by Kate Thompson

From enchanting cliff tops and white sandy bays to the pretty cobbled streets of St Helier, Jersey is known as the land of milk and honey. But for best friends Bea Rose, the local postwoman, and Grace Le Motte, who works in the island’s only library, it becomes the frontline to everyday resistance when their beloved island is occupied by German forces in 1940. Inspired by astonishing true events, this is an unforgettable story of everyday bravery and resistance, full of romance, drama, and camaraderie and a tribute to the joy of reading and the power of books in our darkest hour.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Imprisonment
World War II (theme)

Hold Back the Stars by Khan Katie

Carys and Max have ninety minutes of air left. None of this was supposed to happen. But, perhaps this doesn’t need to be the end… Adrift in space with nothing to hold on to but each other, Carys and Max can’t help but look back at the well-ordered world they have left behind – at the rules they couldn’t reconcile themselves to, and a life to which they might now never return. For in a world where love is banned, what happens when you find it?

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Miscarriage
Death of a partner
Murder-suicide (mutual)

Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade by Janet Skeslien Charles

1918: As the Great War rages, Jessie Carson takes a leave of absence from the New York Public Library to work for the American Committee for Devastated France. Founded by millionaire Anne Morgan, this group of international women help rebuild devastated French communities just miles from the front. Upon arrival, Jessie strives to establish something that the French have never seen—children’s libraries. She turns ambulances into bookmobiles and trains the first French female librarians. Then she disappears. 1987: When NYPL librarian and aspiring writer Wendy Peterson stumbles across a passing… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Sexual assault
Death of an infant (off-page)
World War I

The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles

Paris, 1939: Young and ambitious Odile Souchet has it all: her handsome police officer beau and a dream job at the American Library in Paris. When the Nazis march into Paris, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear, including her beloved library. Together with her fellow librarians, Odile joins the Resistance with the best weapons she has: books. But when the war finally ends, instead of freedom, Odile tastes the bitter sting of unspeakable betrayal. Montana, 1983: Lily is a lonely teenager looking for adventure in small-town Montana. Her interest is piqued by her solitary, elderly neighbour. As Lily uncovers more about… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Antisemitism & Nazism
World War II

The Book of Fire by Christy Lefteri

In present-day Greece, deep in an ancient forest, lives a family: Irini, a musician, who teaches children to read and play music; her husband, Tasso, who paints pictures of the forest, his greatest muse; and Chara, their young daughter, whose name means joy. On the fateful day that will forever alter the trajectory of their lives, flames chase fleeing birds across the sky. The wildfire that will consume their home, and their lives as they know it, races toward them. Months later, as the village tries to rebuild, Irini stumbles upon the man who started the fire, a land speculator who had intended only a small, controlled burn to clear forestland to… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Suicide
Wildfire (theme)

The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri

Nuri is a beekeeper; his wife, Afra, an artist. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo–until the unthinkable happens. When all they care for is destroyed by war, they are forced to escape. But what Afra has seen is so terrible she has gone blind, and so they must embark on a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece towards an uncertain future in Britain. On the way, Nuri is sustained by the knowledge that waiting for them is Mustafa, his cousin and business partner, who has started an apiary and is teaching fellow refugees in Yorkshire to keep bees. As Nuri and Afra travel through a.. Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Grief & loss depiction
Death of a son in a explosion & loss of vision from injuries sustained during said explosion (protagonist)
War themes

Songbirds by Christy Lefteri

Yiannis is a poacher, trapping the tiny protected songbirds that stop in Cyprus as they migrate each year from Africa to Europe and selling them on the black market. He dreams of finding a new way of life, and of marrying Nisha, who works on the island as a nanny and maid–having left her native Sri Lanka to try to earn enough to support her daughter, left behind and raised by relatives. But Nisha has vanished; one evening, she steps out on a mysterious errand and doesn’t return. The police write off her disappearance as just another runaway domestic worker, so her employer, Petra, undertakes the investigation. Petra’s… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

Infidelity
Animal hunting & poaching