This post is updated periodically when I find new WWII fiction to recommend.
Like many other readers, I have a fascination with the WWII genre. These stories give me insight into the time period when my grandfather was fighting a war across the world and my grandma was raising children on the home front. These are the times I never asked enough about. Even so, their answers and experiences, had asked all the questions I wish I would have, would be vastly different than those of someone living in occupied France or being bombed in London or experiencing the horrors in Germany and Eastern Europe.
Soon, as this generation leaves us, all we will have left are stories. Thankfully the authors whose books I profile below and others like them have done the daunting amount of work to recreate these experiences. Yes, it may be historical “fiction” but most of these authors spent years researching and interviewing survivors. I learned more about historical events from these books than I ever did in a class.
These stories are not always enjoyable. Parts of them are horrifying. So why put myself through this and why recommend this reading to you? For me it is a way to honor everything that was sacrificed and everyone who was lost. I also enjoy looking for the good and the helpers in the tragedies. It is also self-reflective: What would I have done? How would I have handled that experience or horror? For what it’s worth, after reading all of these books, I have a better understanding of this time period, human nature, and myself.
I will continue adding to this list as I read book in this genre that I recommend.
A WWII Historical Fiction Reading List
, a solid addition to the WWII fiction genre that filled the void since I enjoyed 
by Susan Meissner, follows the stories of three war brides as they experience the horrors of the war, meet their husbands, and later make the trip on the Queen Mary “across the ocean.” Of course as in many modern novels the chapters jump back and forth between past and present so a reader learns key information at various times to make the story most intriguing.
, I didn’t expect to find myself in a circus during a WWII read.
, especially since the cover of this newer book has a train and instead of a circus, The Orphan Tale by Pam Jenoff is set in WWII Europe.
(2016). It’s hard to sleep when someone (in your book) has just returned from a concentration camp.
by Markus Zusak is my latest read in this genre. Due to some stylistic choices and a story line that is close to my heart and this blog (books!), I’m naming it as one of my favorites of this genre. Here’s why:
depicts women who moved beyond survival to actively aid the resistance movement.
, which of course includes a blind French girl and a conflicted Nazi-youth, both coming of age in WWII Europe.