7 Books Like Josephine Baker's Secret War

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the Booker prize–winning, bestselling author of Atonement and Saturday, a genre-bending new novel full of secrets and surprises; an immersive exploration, across time and history, of what can ever be truly known.

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR

"It gave me so much pleasure I sometimes felt like laughing. . . . It's a sophisticated entertainment of a high order." —The New York Times

"Brilliantly, and surprisingly, plotted."—The Washington Post • "A novelist of consummate skill."—The Wall Street Journal • "Elegantly structured and provocative."—Los… show more.

Prepare for one hell of a journey...

'A big, bold fantasy romp' GUARDIAN

'R.F. Kuang is making magic' ELLE

'[A] truly original and spellbinding hero's-journey story' VOGUE

'I devoured it' RED

One of the BBC's 25 best books of 2025

Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek. The story of a hero's descent to the underworld.

Grad student Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become the brightest mind in the field of analytic magick.

But the only person who can make her dream come true is dead and - inconveniently - in Hell. And Alice, along with her biggest rival… show more.

In 1941, Irene Nemirovsky sat down to write a book that would convey the magnitude of what she was living through, not in terms of battles and politicians, but by evoking the domestic lives and personal trials of the ordinary citizens of France. She did not live to see her ambition fulfilled, or to know that sixty-five years later, "Suite Francaise" would be published for the first time, and hailed as a masterpiece. Set during a year that begins with France's fall to the Nazis in June 1940 and ends with Germany turning its attention to Russia, "Suite Francaise" falls… show more.

Wednesday 12th June 1940. The Times reported 'thousands upon thousands of Parisians leaving the capital by every possible means, preferring to abandon home and property rather than risk even temporary Nazi domination'.

As Hitler's victorious armies approached Paris, the French government abandoned the city and its people, leaving behind them an atmosphere of panic. Roads heading south filled with ordinary people fleeing for their lives with whatever personal possessions they could carry, often with no particular destination in mind. During the long, hard journey, this mass exodus of predominantly women, children, and the elderly, would face constant bombings, machine gun… show more.

'We request an immediate favour of you, to build a shelter for us women and small children, because we have absolutely no place to take refuge and we are terrified!' This French mother's petition sent to her mayor on the eve of Germany's 1940 invasion of France reveals civilians' security concerns unleashed by the Blitzkrieg fighting tactics of World War II. Unprepared for air warfare's assault on civilian psyches, French planners were among the first in history to respond to civilian security challenges posed by aerial bombardment. France under Fire offers a social, political and military examination of the origins… show more.

A dramatic chronicle of the fall of one of the world's great cities covers the five weeks leading up to the German capture of Paris in 1940

On 16 May 1940 an emergency meeting of the French High Command was called at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris. The German army had broken through the French lines on the River Meuse at Sedan and elsewhere, only five days after launching their attack. Churchill, who had been telephoned by Prime Minister Reynaud the previous evening to be told that the French were beaten, rushed to Paris to meet the French leaders. The mood in the meeting was one of panic and despair; there
was talk of evacuating Paris. Churchill asked Gamelin, the French Commander in Chief, 'Where is the… show more.