Here are 100 books that Restless fans have personally recommended if you like
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Not only have I written six critically acclaimed novels for middle-grade readers, including three historical fictions, I am the parent of a tween and teen who is always looking for great read-alouds and read-alongs for my own family. I am a firm believer that this is a valuable way to encourage literacy and love of story as I wrote in a recent, much-discussed essay inThe Atlantic. Having lived abroad, including as an exchange student and camper in the Soviet Union and for three years in Belgium, I am also a huge believer in expanding our own as well as our kids’ knowledge of history beyond our own borders, cultures, identities, and perspectives.
Elizabeth Wein’s young adult novel about female friends and aviators during World War II has a jaw-dropping twist.
But it’s also a fabulous introduction to both the larger war-time history—including in England and France--and the history of women in aviation and military/ intelligence roles.
This story is a great choice for families with girls, who get to see themselves as heroines, fighters, and adventurers—roles traditionally reserved for male protagonists.
'I have two weeks. You'll shoot me at the end no matter what I do.'
Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, Code Name Verity is a bestselling tale of friendship and courage set against the backdrop of World War Two.
Only in wartime could a stalwart lass from Manchester rub shoulders with a Scottish aristocrat, one a pilot, the other a special operations executive. When a vital mission goes wrong, and one of the friends has to bail out of a faulty plane over France, she is captured by the Gestapo and becomes a prisoner of war. The story begins in…
I’m a historical fiction author and librarian from Hampshire, and I’m passionate about women’s history. I write stories inspired by the lives of real women in the past, who achieved extraordinary things, but whom history has forgotten. My debut novel, Operation Moonlight, won the Penguin Random House First Novel competition in 2019.
I adored this captivating, spellbinding tale of the only woman to sail with Francis Drake on the Golden Hind.
It’s based on the compelling true story of a slave called Macaia, a woman who was literally written out of the history books as her ordeal was deemed an inconvenient truth. Nikki Marmery not only vividly and authentically brings to light this courageous woman's story, but she sets Macaia front and centre.
I learned so much about this period of human history, about what life was like aboard a 16th Century sailing ship, and about how world exploration has never been solely a male endeavour. Macaia is an ordinary woman, who showed extraordinary bravery and endurance, and I found her story fascinating, moving, and life-affirming.
April 1579: When two ships meet off the Pacific coast of New Spain, an enslaved woman seizes the chance to escape. But Maria has unwittingly joined Francis Drake’s circumnavigation voyage as he sets sail on a secret detour into the far north. Sailing into the unknown on the Golden Hind, a lone woman among 80 men, Maria will be tested to the very limits of her endurance. It will take all her wits to survive—and courage to cut the ties that bind her to Drake to pursue her own journey. How far will Maria go to be truly free? Inspired…
Officially, I’m an award-winning author and specialist in the fields of psychology, trauma, and spirituality. I’m also a professionally trained therapist, clinical ethicist, and researcher. Ultimately, I’m an ardent believer that the same life that brings us joy also (sometimes) brings us pain. More importantly, that every aspect of life has a role to play in making us who we are today and who we’ll be tomorrow. We don’t always have control over the events in life, but the script we live by is ours to write—and write it we must, as only we can. I’m also a three-time heart attack survivor.
Markus Zusak’s book is definitely not for the faint of heart or those easily bored: its narrator is Death, and the book is over 500 pages long. Not really the kind of book you’d think of for those aged 12 and up (as it’s listed). But it is one that really ought to be universally read.
The book follows two young children battling for survival in Nazi Germany. Entropy hangs in the air like Death’s shadow. Life’s harsh realities—like evil, heartache, pain, and mortality—are ever-present. In Max's (the young boy) dreams, he is boxing with Hitler and lands a punch, knocking the Fuhrer down, but soon he’s overtaken by the crowd.
This is one of the reasons I appreciate this book: winners sometimes lose; bad things happen to good people. And yet, the response to this existential injustice isn’t to become a mere survivor, victim, or martyr. It’s to…
'Life affirming, triumphant and tragic . . . masterfully told. . . but also a wonderful page-turner' Guardian 'Brilliant and hugely ambitious' New York Times 'Extraordinary' Telegraph ___
HERE IS A SMALL FACT - YOU ARE GOING TO DIE
1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.
Two of my three novels have young women protagonists. I find young adulthood a fascinating time in women’s lives and I enjoy creating a character and putting her in a historical setting. The Second World War offers fertile ground for storytelling, and I grew up south of London after the war. My father’s unpublished memoir, in which he describes an event that he experienced in the war, inspired me to write about it, but I told the story through the eyes of the protagonist, Kate.
I loved the three-part format of this book divided by time periods. The first part, set in 1935, describes an event that took place on a hot summer day in the grounds of the family’s country house garden. It’s seen from the different perspectives of thirteen-year-old Briony and her older sister Cecelia. The story evolves from there in parts two and three in unpredictable and devastating ways.
I appreciated the book’s in-depth exploration of the power of a lie and the devastating consequences of that lie. This psychological study of adult Briony’s guilt and subsequent atonement eloquently depicts how war makes demands of even the most privileged citizens.
On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a…
I am Rhys Bowen, New York Times best selling author of two historical mystery series and several Internationally best selling historical novels. Many of these take place in and around World War II. I have particularly focused on the bravery of ordinary women, the unsung heroines who risked their lives against impossible odds. My stories take place in France, Italy, as well as, England so these books resonated with me.
This book is perhaps my favorite of all the WWII novels.
Full of warm, eccentric characters and so true to what happened on the Channel Islands (where I have been conducting my own research!) Again it is set in the present and the past, with a present-day heroine going to Guernsey to meet with survivors of the Nazi occupation.
What starts off as a light-hearted mission gradually peels back layers of brutality and betrayal.
The beloved, life-affirming international bestseller which has sold over 5 million copies worldwide - now a major film starring Lily James, Matthew Goode, Jessica Brown Findlay, Tom Courtenay and Penelope Wilton
'I can't remember the last time I discovered a novel as smart and delightful as this one ... Treat yourself to this book, please - I can't recommend it highly enough' Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love
To give them hope she must tell their story
It's 1946. The war is over, and Juliet Ashton has writer's block. But when she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of…
I grew up in small-town America, very far from where I was born (London), with a strong desire to travel and explore. I also developed a thirst for history—the older the better! At eighteen, I went to work on European digs before studying Archaeology in the UK and teaching in Southern Africa. Across these adventures I both experienced and witnessed the victimization of young women—an even more common ordeal in the past. So now I write historical fiction about resourceful, brave women who strive to be the active, powerful centres of their own stories. I hope you find the books on my list as inspiring as I do!
When I teach creative writing, I often use this excellent historical novel set in the USSR during WW2 as an example. There are scenes from this book seared into my memory—they are so powerful, visceral, and moving.. Helen Dunmore is able to put the reader in the centre of the most harrowing circumstances, where people are starving, freezing, and dying in the thousands, and yet allow us to care about the individual and feel uplifted by their struggle. In Leningrad, Anna has already lost her mother, who died giving birth to her baby brother, Kolya. During the brutal siege of 1941-44, Anna must somehow keep her young brother alive without losing her humanity. A story of one ordinary woman pushed to extraordinary bravery—representing so many.
Called "elegantly, starkly beautiful" by The New York Times Book Review, The Siege is Helen Dunmore's masterpiece. Her canvas is monumental -- the Nazis' 1941 winter siege on Leningrad that killed six hundred thousand -- but her focus is heartrendingly intimate. One family, the Levins, fights to stay alive in their small apartment, held together by the unlikely courage and resourcefulness of twenty-two-year-old Anna. Though she dreams of an artist's life, she must instead forage for food in the ever more desperate city and watch her little brother grow cruelly thin. Their father, a blacklisted writer who once advocated a…
I’ve always loved history. When I wrote The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett in 2019, I particularly enjoyed writing Eudora’s flashback scenes set during the Second World War and decided, in my wisdom, to write a novel entirely set during that time. After a lot of research (disappearing down the occasional rabbit hole), I began to write The Air Raid Book Club, creating a cast of female characters who show quiet courage and incredible resilience as they support their community by forming a book club during the course of the war. It was a joy to write and I hope readers derive similar joy from reading it and the books I’ve recommended!
This book has everything you want from a gripping historical novel – a pacy dual timeline plot which races along at breakneck speed featuring badass female spies, despicable villains, and moments of pure heartbreak, and it’s based on a true story.
I’m a sucker for an unlikely friendship and the one which develops between veteran spy Eve and young Charlie as they embark on a mission to find Charlie’s missing cousin, is a particularly special one. There’s a reason why Kate Quinn is one of the queens of this genre.
In an enthralling new historical novel from national bestselling author Kate Quinn, two women-a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947-are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption. 1947. In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She's also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might…
I’ve always loved history. When I wrote The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett in 2019, I particularly enjoyed writing Eudora’s flashback scenes set during the Second World War and decided, in my wisdom, to write a novel entirely set during that time. After a lot of research (disappearing down the occasional rabbit hole), I began to write The Air Raid Book Club, creating a cast of female characters who show quiet courage and incredible resilience as they support their community by forming a book club during the course of the war. It was a joy to write and I hope readers derive similar joy from reading it and the books I’ve recommended!
For a woman brought up on a diet of PG Wodehouse, the character of Mrs. Bird felt like an old friend.
She is larger than life in the best sense of the word and this story of Emmy Lake and her wartime experience of working for the formidable woman is a joy from beginning to end. You are rooting for Emmy at every step first in her bid for journalistic stardom and then when she decides to play agony aunt to the women who desperately need her help.
The Richard & Judy Book Club Pick and Sunday Times Bestseller
'Funny, fresh, and touching, Dear Mrs Bird is a treat of a read.' Annie Barrows, author of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
'The sweetest, most uplifting, lovely book about courage, friendship, love . . . It'll be huge; it deserves to be' Marian Keyes
London, 1941. Emmeline Lake and her best friend Bunty are trying to stay cheerful despite the Luftwaffe making life thoroughly annoying for everyone. Emmy dreams of becoming a Lady War Correspondent and when she spots a job advertisement in the newspaper she…
Two of my three novels have young women protagonists. I find young adulthood a fascinating time in women’s lives and I enjoy creating a character and putting her in a historical setting. The Second World War offers fertile ground for storytelling, and I grew up south of London after the war. My father’s unpublished memoir, in which he describes an event that he experienced in the war, inspired me to write about it, but I told the story through the eyes of the protagonist, Kate.
I loved this book because Grace, the young woman in the story, was able to find meaning even in the face of war. She discovered the power of storytelling and used it to raise morale when bombs were falling on London. I found the book easy to read, and I felt sympathy for Grace and other ordinary people whose lives were upended by the war.
“An irresistible tale which showcases the transformative power of literacy, reminding us of the hope and sanctuary our neighborhood bookstores offer during the perilous trials of war and unrest.”
—KIM MICHELE RICHARDSON, author of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
August 1939: London prepares for war as Hitler’s forces sweep across Europe. Grace Bennett has always dreamed of moving to the city, but the bunkers and drawn curtains that she finds on her arrival are not what she expected. And she certainly never imagined she’d wind up working at Primrose Hill, a dusty old bookshop…
I’m a historical fiction author and librarian from Hampshire, and I’m passionate about women’s history. I write stories inspired by the lives of real women in the past, who achieved extraordinary things, but whom history has forgotten. My debut novel, Operation Moonlight, won the Penguin Random House First Novel competition in 2019.
This is one of my favourite novels about the imagined life of the 19th Century fossil enthusiast, Mary Anning.
Though poor and uneducated, Mary had a passion for dinosaur fossils, scouring the windswept Jurassic coast near Lyme Regis. She found fossils nobody else could, making discoveries that shook the scientific world. But science in the past was an almost entirely male-dominated arena, and Mary’s finds were effectively stolen from her, and she was ignored and forgotten in the scientific community.
Mary’s story is one of female hardship, endurance, and tenacity, and her contribution to our scientific knowledge deserves to be remembered.
From the New York Times bestselling novelist, a stunning historical novel that follows the story of Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, two extraordinary 19th century fossil hunters who changed the scientific world forever.
On the windswept, fossil-strewn beaches of the English coast, poor and uneducated Mary learns that she has a unique gift: "the eye" to spot ammonites and other fossils no one else can see. When she uncovers an unusual fossilized skeleton in the cliffs near her home, she sets the religious community on edge, the townspeople to gossip, and the scientific world alight. After enduring bitter cold, thunderstorms,…
