Here are 100 books that The Ops Room Girls fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have written one complete WW2 saga series, Lily Baker, and am currently writing a second series, The Library Girls. I am addicted to reading about the period and can lose hours and hours doing factual research as well. My mother was a Cockney, and I became immersed in her wartime stories, mostly about the fun she had but also about her many struggles. I love stories about strong women overcoming adversity, and during WW2, many showed the world how capable and resilient they were. I have a Master's Degree in Professional Writing and write occasional magazine articles.
I love books that cover two time periods, and this one did not disappoint.
The WW2 story showed me the importance of ‘last letters’ soldiers wrote home in case they died in action. I found myself immersed not just in the character, Ellie, but the wartime background in which she worked.
It was an emotional read. The present-day half of the book is equally engaging, where we learn about Stephanie’s difficult childhood. Reading it, I was fully engaged in her struggles and rooting for her to succeed.
'Heart-breaking but so uplifting - Kerry really is a hugely talented voice.' Nicola Cornick, author of The Forgotten Sister
Inspired by an incredible true story, this is an unforgettable novel about love, loss and one impossible choice...
London, 1940 When nurse Elsie offers to send a reassuring letter to the family of a patient, she has an idea. She begins a book of last letters: messages to be sent on to wounded soldiers' loved ones should the very worst come to pass, so that no one is left without a final goodbye.
But one message will change Elsie's life forever.…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I have written one complete WW2 saga series, Lily Baker, and am currently writing a second series, The Library Girls. I am addicted to reading about the period and can lose hours and hours doing factual research as well. My mother was a Cockney, and I became immersed in her wartime stories, mostly about the fun she had but also about her many struggles. I love stories about strong women overcoming adversity, and during WW2, many showed the world how capable and resilient they were. I have a Master's Degree in Professional Writing and write occasional magazine articles.
I loved the way when reading this book, I learned a lot about the Blitz and the problems faced by Londoners, their struggles, and their strengths.
The main character, Gertie, is relatable, and I was keen to find out how she overcomes the trials and tribulations she faces. It is a warm and touching story about Gertie’s love of people and books (she has a bookshop). I loved her positive attitude even when her husband died.
I found it one of those books I couldn’t put down but didn’t want it to end.
'A warm and tender tale about the power and healing of friendship and community and the magic of books' - Ruth Hogan
As the bombs began to fall, the book club kept their hopes alive...
The most emotional, uplifting and captivating story of wartime London and the extraordinary power of books to shine a light and draw people together in the darkest of days, inspired by true events.
London, 1938. Bookseller Gertie Bingham is facing difficult times, having just lost her beloved husband, Harry, and with a lingering sadness at never having been able to have a child of her…
Like the widows in The Widows’ Wine Club, I’m getting on. Unlike them, I’ve been a writer for forty years, often hunched over a keyboard, ignoring people. Amazingly, though, I managed to have a happy marriage and make some great friends. Phew! Because I’ve needed friends, especially since my husband died. Looking back, I’m interested to see that I didn’t instantly take to some of my closest buddies. Circumstances threw us together, and we got to know and like and love each other. I explore this in my book.
Again, this has everything I like in a book, characters I care about, a great page-turning plot, a fight for what’s right, and a beautiful romantic thread.
By amazing coincidence, it’s also about inspiring librarians, two very different women who join forces to bring books to people who need them. Clara Button, recently widowed and under pressure to be respectable, is very different from racy unmarried Ruby Munroe, but the two form a strong bond grounded in mutual respect.
Based on historical fact, it tells the story of the underground library, built in the disused Bethnal Green tube station in 1944 when the Blitz was wreaking havoc in wartime London. Feel-good fiction at its best. Brill!
Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While the world remains at war, in East London Clara has created the country's only underground library, built over the tracks in the disused Bethnal Green tube station. Down here a secret community thrives: with thousands of bunk beds, a nursery, a cafe and a theatre offering shelter, solace and escape from the bombs that fall above.
Along with her glamorous best friend and library assistant Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground. But as the war drags on,…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I have written one complete WW2 saga series, Lily Baker, and am currently writing a second series, The Library Girls. I am addicted to reading about the period and can lose hours and hours doing factual research as well. My mother was a Cockney, and I became immersed in her wartime stories, mostly about the fun she had but also about her many struggles. I love stories about strong women overcoming adversity, and during WW2, many showed the world how capable and resilient they were. I have a Master's Degree in Professional Writing and write occasional magazine articles.
I purchased this fascinating book for research about Silvertown, a London area I had known nothing about previously. The author very cleverly tells the memoire as a story of her grandparent’s lives as if it were a novel. She must have spent many hours talking to her grandmother and others.
I loved learning about the fascinating people and their café. Poor Jenny, her grandmother, was so real. She had a hard life, and reading it, my heart went out to her.
Melanie McGrath's critically acclaimed East End family memoir now in paperback.
In this remarkable book, award-winning writer Melanie McGrath has given us a vivid and poignant memoir of the East End. McGrath spent years wondering about her East End roots. At the turn of the twenty-first century the places where her grandparents lived out their lives Poplar, East Ham and Silvertown - are virtually unrecognisable; her grandparents, Jenny and Len Page, long since dead and already half forgotten.
Silvertown teems with stories of life in the docks and pubs and dog tracks of the old East End where Melanie McGrath's…
I’m a pragmatist and a problem-solver. As a student of innovation, I draw inspiration from a risk-taker’s approach to attacking a problem. I’ve changed my life drastically from a farmland kid to a global technology CEO and then author. Along the way, I’ve had opportunities to struggle. I’ve found conventional wisdom seldom fixes the problem, so I’ve refined the ability to look for unique paths. I believe women provide the best examples to learn from because they don’t walk into the room bluffing their way to the solution. They credit the resources they tapped for their solution and bring others along in the journey to raise the education level.
I’m blown away by the efforts put forth by women to crack enemy code during WWII at Bletchley Park, England, while in a stealth mode. I was stunned by the decades these women and men kept the secret about their jobs there. The high stakes and the challenges faced made this a page-turner, which isn’t always the case for a nonfiction title. I’m impressed by the recruitment of women via word puzzle and crossword puzzle contests in the newspaper.
The brilliant code-cracking skills revealed in these stories highlight intelligence and the fierce country loyalty towards ending the war. Sinclair is really good at interviewing his subjects and putting the stories into context. I’ll sneak in The Rose Code as a novel on the same topic.
Bletchley Park was where one of the war's most famous - and crucial - achievements was made: the cracking of Germany's "Enigma" code in which its most important military communications were couched. This country house in the Buckinghamshire countryside was home to Britain's most brilliant mathematical brains, like Alan Turing, and the scene of Immense advances in technology - indeed, the birth of modern computing. The military codes deciphered there were instrumental in turning both the Battle of the Atlantic and the war in North Africa. But, though plenty has been written about the boffins, and the codebreaking, fictional and…
I’ve been fascinated with historical fiction, especially the World War II era, ever since I listened to my mother playing her Big Band Records. I’ve also loved mysteries since I picked up my first Nancy Drew book. Once I discovered historical mysteries, I haven’t been able to separate the two. I’ve recently expanded my interest to include the first world war. There are so many great stories that I’m afraid I’ll never get to read them all. It was really hard to narrow down my list to five books and I hope you’ll love the ones I’ve chosen for you.
I adore this entire series, and especially this third book. Maggie Hope, who started out as a typist for Winston Churchill is now a full-blown spy for MI-5 and is sent to Germany.
I love seeing Maggie’s development throughout the series. Even when faced with what seem like insurmountable odds, she doesn’t give up. Maggie is the epitome of a woman working not only in a job that was likely considered “man’s work” but doing it splendidly.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • For fans of Jacqueline Winspear, Laurie R. King, and Anne Perry, whip-smart heroine Maggie Hope returns to embark on a clandestine mission behind enemy lines where no one can be trusted, and even the smallest indiscretion can be deadly.
World War II has finally come home to Britain, but it takes more than nightly air raids to rattle intrepid spy and expert code breaker Maggie Hope. After serving as a secret agent to protect Princess Elizabeth at Windsor Castle, Maggie is now an elite member of the Special Operations Executive—a black ops organization designed to…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
World War II has always been my passion. As a baby boomer, I grew up with two brothers and four uncles who told me their stories of the war and answered the questions of my inquisitive mind. A love of war history led me to study history at university, but those studies also made me want to look at the history from non-American perspectives. My research into those points of view led me to travel to all theaters of the war, Axis as well as Allies. I encountered fascinating stories from diverse veterans or the memoirs they wrote. In the process, I encountered one story that I decided to write in my novel.
I loved the intermingling of history and story, research and plot, in this book. The period details were spot on, and I’ve always been fascinated by the Nazi rocketry program. The underlay of how a great scientific idea can be perverted to unintended consequences was intriguing and frightfully realistic for modern times.
The counterplay between the V2 engineer and the British spy trying to stop V2 launches fascinated me. I loved the conflicted morality of the engineer who wanted to shoot the rocket to the moon instead of at people.
Rudi Graf used to dream of sending a rocket to the moon. Instead, he has helped to create the world's most sophisticated weapon: the V2 ballistic missile, capable of delivering a one-ton warhead at three times the speed of sound.
In a desperate gamble to avoid defeat in the winter of 1944, Hitler orders ten thousand to be built. Graf is tasked with firing these lethal 'vengeance weapons' at London.
Kay Caton-Walsh is an officer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force who joins a unit of WAAFs…
I’m endlessly fascinated by the stories of young women from the WW2 era, who came of age at the moment the world was torn apart. As an author of wartime historical fiction with strong female characters, it’s vital for me to understand the experience of ordinary women who grew up in such extraordinary times, so I’m always on the hunt for real voices from the era. I’d love to think that in similar circumstances I’d face my challenges with the same humour, resourcefulness, bravery, and humanity as my favourite five female memoirists selected for you here.
I loved this book. It’s an absolute classic coming-of-age story, beginning when Emma is a schoolgirl on the brink of teens, and ending with her as a newly-married novelist. I particularly identified with the author as the bookish youngest of three, growing up in Devon – there were lots of parallels with my own teenage self – and I wonder how I would have coped with emerging into adulthood just as war broke out, as Emma did – highly recommended!
Uprooted from her beloved Great Western Beach, Emma Smith moves with her family from Newquay to the Devonshire village of Crapstone. But the dust has hardly settled when tragedy strikes, and Emma's father, a DSO-decorated hero of the Great War, is so frustrated by the hardship of life as a lowly bank clerk and by his thwarted artistic ambitions that he suffers a catastrophic breakdown - from which disaster Emma's resourceful mother rallies courageously. Then, in 1939, the war again becomes a reality. Emma's sister Pam at once enlists with the WAAF and Jim, her politically minded brother, after initially…
I fell in love with English history around age 10 when I began reading historical fiction and non-fiction. I have maintained a history blog, The Lazy Historian, since 2015 and I published a casually written non-fiction book, The Lazy Historian’s Guide to the Wives of Henry VIII, in 2018. When I began writing my Homefront Hearts WWII romance trilogy, I threw myself into researching the well-documented daily lives of the English and the various challenges that came from “keeping calm and carrying on.”
This book contains a multitude of stories from people who lived in Britain during WWII and dealt with things like wartime preparations, rationing, “Dig for Victory,” travel, homefront war work, and lots of other daily life details—even something as mundane as the types of books people were reading during that time makes it into this thick and comprehensive social history book. Also includes quite a few very nice photos.
Although nearly 90% of the population of Great Britain remained civilians throughout the war, or for a large part of it, their story has so far largely gone untold. In contrast with the thousands of books on military operations, barely any have concerned themselves with the individual's experience. The problems of the ordinary family are barely ever mentioned - food rationing, clothes rationing, the black-out and air raids get little space, and everyday shortages almost none at all.
This book is an attempt to redress the balance; to tell the civilian's story largely through their own recollections and in their…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I’m endlessly fascinated by the stories of young women from the WW2 era, who came of age at the moment the world was torn apart. As an author of wartime historical fiction with strong female characters, it’s vital for me to understand the experience of ordinary women who grew up in such extraordinary times, so I’m always on the hunt for real voices from the era. I’d love to think that in similar circumstances I’d face my challenges with the same humour, resourcefulness, bravery, and humanity as my favourite five female memoirists selected for you here.
If I’d been a London teenager at the outbreak of WW2, Joan is who I’d choose to have as my best friend. Joan’s memoirs, taken from her actual diaries, which were written secretly during bombing raids, reveal a conflicted, hormonally charged, humorous woman. This snippet gives you an idea: “Well here I sit in the air-raid shelter with screaming bombs falling right and left…I can’t help feeling that each moment may be my last, and as the opposite of death is life, I think I shall get seduced by Rupert tomorrow.” Written with great wit, and full of joie de vivre, Love Lessons is a wonderful read.
On my way to the studio there was an air-raid. I ran into the brick shelter in the middle of the road. There were poor little Leonard and Agnes sitting on their suitcases, having lost their all. Luckily Leonard had been wearing his best trousers at the time. Madame Arcana was there too wearing a gold brocade toque and a blanket. It was bloody cold and I wanted to pee badly, but couldn't. Leonard wouldn't give me his seat as he believes in the equality of the sexes, so I sat on the floor...'
