 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| The hope and fervor of love and the fear and destruction of war are timeless
themes, as compelling in the novels of today as they were in the classics of the
past. In the tradition of A Farewell to Arms and Gone With the Wind, the love
stories that unfold amid the atrocities of battle in the following novels are
sure to haunt the memory and capture the imagination. Read more about them, print
our free Reading Group Guides, and learn what other readers have to say!
Write a review
From the bestselling author of Birdsong comes the remarkable story of a young
Scottish woman who joins the effort to liberate France from the Nazis, while
pursuing a perilous mission of her own. In blacked-out, wartime London,
Charlotte Gray develops a dangerous passion for an RAF pilot, and when he fails
to return from a daring flight into France, she is determined to find him. In
the service of the Resistance, she dyes her hair, changes her name, and travels
to the village of Lavaurette. Here she will come face to face with the harrowing
truth of what took place during Europe's darkest years, and with a secret that
threatens to cast its shadow over the remainder of her days. Vividly rendered,
tremendously moving, Charlotte Gray confirms Faulks as one of the finest
novelists working today.
Extravagant, inventive, emotionally sweeping, Corelli's Mandolin is the story of
a timeless place that one day wakes up to find itself in the jaws of history.
The place is the Greek island of Cephallonia, where gods once dabbled in the
affairs of men and the local saint periodically rises from his sarcophagus to
cure the mad. Then the tide of World War II rolls onto the island's shores in
the form of the conquering Italian army. Caught in the occupation are
Pelagia, a willful, beautiful young woman, and the two suitors vying for her
love: Mandras, a gentle fisherman turned ruthless guerilla, and the charming,
mandolin-playing Captain Corelli, a reluctant officer of the Italian garrison on
the island. Rich with loyalties and betrayals, and set against a landscape where
the factual blends seamlessly with the fantastic, Corelli's Mandolin is a
passionate novel as rich in ideas as it is genuinely moving.
Combining the narrative drive of Birdsong with the emotional resonance of The
Reader, The Mark of the Angel is the stunning American debut of an internationally acclaimed
writer. The year is 1957,
and the place is Paris, where the psychic wounds of World War II have barely
begun to heal and the Algerian war is about to escalate. Saffie, an emotionally
damaged young German woman, arrives on the doorstep of Raphael, a privileged
musician who finds her reserve irresistible. He hires her, and over the next few
days seduces her and convinces her to marry him. But when Raphael sends Saffie
on an errand to the Jewish ghetto, where she meets András, a Hungarian
instrument maker, each of their lives will be altered in startling and unexpected
ways. As Saffie learns to feel again, her long buried memories coupled with the
inexorable flow of historical forces beyond anyone's control, create a tableau of
epic tragedy.
|
