Angels in the Gloom

Fall of Giants

Ken Follett · 892 pages

It is 1911. The Coronation Day of King George V. The Williams, a Welsh coal-mining family, is linked by romance and enmity to the Fitzherberts, aristocratic coal-mine owners. Lady Maud Fitzherbert falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German Embassy in London. Their destiny is entangled with that of an ambitious young aide to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and to two orphaned Russian b

The Dust That Falls from Dreams

Louis de Bernieres · 511 pages

In the brief golden years before the outbreak of World War I, Rosie McCosh and her three very different sisters are growing up in an eccentric household in Kent, with their neighbours the Pitt boys on one side and the Pendennis boys on the other. But their days of childhood adventure are shadowed by the approach of the conflict that will engulf them on the cusp of adulthood. When the boys end up s

The Lost Soldier

Diney Costeloe · 449 pages

Eight ash trees were planted in the Dorset village of Charlton Ambrose, as a timeless memorial to the men killed in the Great War. One dark and chilly night in 1921, a ninth tree appears. Who planted it and why? And who was 'the unknown soldier' for whom it is marked? Eighty years later, the memorial is under threat from developers. Local reporter, Rachel Elliott, is determined not only to save it

The Storms of War

Kate Williams · 514 pages

In the idyllic early summer of 1914, life is good for the de Witt family. Rudolf and Verena are planning the wedding of their daughter Emmeline, while their eldest son, Arthur, is studying in Paris and Michael is just back from his first term at Cambridge. Celia, the youngest of the de Witt children, is on the brink of adulthood, and secretly dreams of escaping her carefully mapped-out future and

The Passing Bells

Phillip Rock · 527 pages

The Given Day

Dennis Lehane · 720 pages

Set in Boston at the end of the First World War, New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane's long-awaited eighth novel unflinchingly captures the political and social unrest of a nation caught at the crossroads between past and future. Filled with a cast of unforgettable characters more richly drawn than any Lehane has ever created, The Given Day tells the story of two families — one black,

The White Lady

Jacqueline Winspear · 321 pages

The Regeneration Trilogy

Pat Barker · 608 pages

Regeneration: When Dr William Rivers treats a patient at a mental hospital who has spoken out against World War I, the relationship that develops between them makes them debate the logic of their respective positions. Thus the doctor questions the sanity of the war which is his duty to return his patients to. The eye in the door: Drawing of the history of the Pemberton Billing libel trial in wh

A Pattern of Lies

Charles Todd · 352 pages

"A horrific explosion at a gunpowder mill sends Bess Crawford to war-torn France to keep a deadly pattern of lies from leading to more deaths, in this compelling and atmospheric mystery... An explosion and fire at the Ashton Gunpowder Mill in Kent has killed over a hundred men. It's called an appalling tragedy-- until suspicion and rumor raise the specter of murder. While visiting the Ashton fa

The Corners of the Globe

Robert Goddard · 396 pages

"Max is sent on his first mission for legendary German spy Fritz Lemmer, the very man who claims responsibility for the murder of Max's father. As Max travels to Scotland's remote Orkney Islands to collect a mysterious grey file from a German captain, he must keep his true allegiances in mind. Further complications arise when a fellow tourist recognizes Max from their school days and threatens to

The First Casualty

Ben Elton · 404 pages

A conscientious objector is released from prison and sent to the front lines to investigate the death of a British officer and celebrated poet.

A Very Long Engagement

Sebastien Japrisot · 327 pages

Three Day Road

Joseph Boyden · 400 pages

He Shall Thunder in the Sky

Elizabeth Peters · 656 pages

"The pursuit of knowledge must never be deterred by Man's folly. So the close of 1914 finds Amelia Peabody and her husband Radcliffe Emerson back in Egypt for another season of archaeological excavation.". "Trouble is brewing in Cairo and the defiantly pacifist stance of Amelia and Emerson's headstrong son Ramses is earning the young man the derision, and much worse, of the British expatriate com

The Woman in the Green Dress

Tea Cooper · 336 pages

Csardas

Diane Pearson · 608 pages

At the turn of the century the wealthy Ferenc family lived in carefree splendor—summering in the lush countryside, wintering in elegant townhouses. Eva and Malie Ferenc, swept up in the fervor of endless glittering parties, were content and secure in their moneyed, fun-filled world, where romance was for the asking. But when Malie fell in love with a young officer, Karoly, her father forbade

1914

Jean Echenoz · 119 pages

Five Frenchmen go off to war, including two brothers who leave behind Blanche, a woman they both love, who longs to find out whether either one will be coming home to her.

Company K

William March · 183 pages

Stemming directly from the author's experiences with the U.S. Marines in France during World War I, the book consists of 113 sketches, or chapters, tracing the fictional Company K's war exploits and providing an emotional history of the men of the company that extends beyond the boundaries of the war itself.

Three Soldiers

John dos Passos · 433 pages

John Dos Passos had just returned from studying architecture in Spain when America entered World War I and - driven by the idealism that infected many young Americans (including Hemingway and e.e. cummings) - he joined up as a driver for the Ambulance Corps. His rapid and profound disillusionment forms the core of Three Soldiers, a fierce denunciation of the military and of the far-reaching social

Grey Souls

Philippe Claudel · 183 pages

"A shocking crime is committed in a small town in north-east France in the dead of the bitter winter of 1917, as the war is still being fought in the trenches, within sight and sound of the town. But the town itself is untouched. One morning, a beautiful ten-year-old girl, one of the three daughters of the local innkeeper, is found strangled and dumped in the canal. Suspicion falls immediately on

The Heroes' Welcome

Louisa Young · 146 pages

April 1919, and Britain is realizing that it is no longer at war. Now, Nadine and Riley, Rose, and Peter and Julia, must try to regain a sense of normality. But long shadows cast by the war dim the potential joys of peacetime, and matters of the heart prove arduous and bewildering. Normality doesn't seem to exist the way it did, and there is no 'going back' to anything. What must give, for happine

Shadow of Night

Deborah Harkness · 592 pages

Picking up from A Discovery of Witches’ cliffhanger ending, Shadow of Night takes Diana and Matthew on a trip through time to Elizabethan London, where they are plunged into a world of spies, magic, and a coterie of Matthew’s old friends, the School of Night. As the search for Ashmole 782 deepens and Diana seeks out a witch to tutor her in magic, the net of Matthew’s past tightens around them, and

A God in Every Stone

Kamila Shamsie · 359 pages

July 1914. A young Englishwoman, Vivian Rose Spencer is running up a mountainside in an ancient land. She picks up a fig and holds it to her nose. Around her is a maze of broken columns, taller than the tallest of men. Nearby is the familiar lean form of her father's old friend, Tahsin Bey, an archaeologist. Viv is about to discover the Temple of Zeus, the call of adventure and the ecstasy of love

The House at Riverton

Kate Morton · 192 pages

Summer 1924. On the eve of a glittering society party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, will never speak to each other again. Winter 1999. Grace Bradley, ninety-eight, one-time housemaid at Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet's suicide. Ghost awaken and old me