The best books about women of WW2, and their untold stories

You never know who can be until you have to be that person to survive.

Women should never underestimate themselves. That was my takeaway from Mistress of the Ritz by Melanie Benjamin, a true life story about an American woman who worked for the French Resistance during World War II. 

I couldn’t help but be inspired by Blanche Auzello, a young American actress in Paris, who, as the Nazis are taking over the city, chooses to remain in Paris with her husband.

Despite the difficulties of the Nazi occupation, and the growing distance in her relationship with her husband, Blance takes on new challenges and roles she never expected to play that will forever change her life and the lives of those close to her.  

Mistress of the Ritz is the type of historical mystery that, despite knowing the outcome of the war, will keep readers turning pages and wondering...could I have been so brave?

I love books about women who don’t hear the word ‘No.” And A Spy Above the Clouds is just such a book.

Constance Vivier-Clarke, “Viv” is a young American, a once hopeful Olympic downhill skiers whose pampered life is on the skids. World War 2 had broken out and she’s been shoved to the sidelines, told to go home and get married. 

But Viv has other ideas and talks her way into driving an ambulance for the American Hospital in Paris, and eventually, because of her skiing abilities, becomes a member of “Churchill’s Angels” working with the resistance to carry secret messages across the French Alps. 

This is a book that inspires. A book that challenges. And at the end of the day a book that readers will not soon forget.  

Talk about overcoming all odds...A Woman of No Importance is exactly that.

Virgina Hall, an athletic young woman, who has lost the lower part of her leg due to a hunting accident, seeks entry to the foreign service and is rejected. But she’s not about to go home and make cookies.

This is a woman who doesn’t suffer fools, and will put her life on the line for a cause she believes in. An inspirational book that will challenge readers to reach for their higher selves.  

I love when an author can blend two timelines to tell a story, particularly in historical fiction.

Transitioning back and forth to reveal how secrets and stories that happened years before still remain influential generations later. Mandy Robotham has done just that in The Secret Messenger, the story of a young woman, Luisa Belmont, who finds a old typewriter in her attic. 

Unwilling to just let it go, Mandy pursues an investigation that leads back to the dark days of World Wars 2 and uncovers a hallowing tale of bravery and betrayal that make this work of fiction as pertinent today as it would have been then.  

When it comes to female heroism and the ultimate sacrifice to save not only lives but those cultural icons that herold times past, I have to say Laura Morelli’s The Night Portrait is top of my list.

Morelli successfully blends two timelines 500 years apart. A 16-year-old girl is mistress to the Duke of Millan and poses for Leonardo da Vinci, in hopes of securing her future.

Five hundred years later, as World War 2 breaks out, another young woman is charged with securing her future by agreeing to see da Vinci’s painting, now in the hands of a Nazi war criminal, is successfully transferred to an American soldier working with the Monuments Men. Security. War. Death. Destruction. Morelli has written it all.

Whether it was 500 years ago or today, Morelli has penned a novel of man’s basic need for peace and security in order to thrive, and of importance of our cultural icons that remind us of who we were and who we can become.