World War I Fiction

In honor of Veteran's Day, today's post is about World War I fiction.  Yes, you read that right - I said World War I!  There is a plethora of great World War II fiction and I know a lot of people love to read it - I'm one of them and in fact I read enough of it that I could probably write a second post just updating my post on World War II fiction from Veteran's Day 2 years ago.  But believe it or not, there are actually some really good novels about World War I which I’ve read in the past few years as well, and I thought it would be interesting to showcase those.  And I think because I've read less books on World War I, I find them really interesting and even learn a lot from them - in fact I often find myself going on the internet to learn more during/after reading them because World War I is kind of confusing.  So here are the novels I most recommend about World War I.

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn - This novel is set in two time periods - World War I, following novice female spy Eve, and 1947, when a young American woman named Charlie is in Europe looking for her cousin Rose, who disappeared sometime during World War II.  This book was also made even more interesting by reading the afterword and finding out that while the character of Eve was fictional, a lot of the other stuff about female spies in WWI was true.  A little long, but a good and interesting read.

Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly - This book is set in 1916 and thereafter, during the Russian revolution and World War I.  Perspective shifts between 3 characters - Sofya, a young Russian woman of noble birth; Varinka, a young Russian peasant woman; and Eliza, a New York socialite.  I haven’t read much fiction set in or around the Russian revolution so that was definitely very interesting in addition to the World War I stuff.  Eliza is based on a real person and is the mother of Caroline, one of the 3 main characters of Hall’s previous novel, “Lilac Girls.”  However, it’s not really a prequel - you could definitely read this book without reading that one.  For me, this book wasn’t quite as special as “Lilac Girls” (which was one of my ten favorite books of 2019) but was still very good.

Girls on the Line by Aimee K. Runyan - This novel is about a young woman named Ruby, who, though being groomed by her family for life as a society wife, becomes one of the female telephone operators who became a part of the Army Signal Corp in Europe during World War I.  I love historical fiction that teaches me about something new, and this one certainly did.  Plus, Ruby was just such a charming character.  Really enjoyed this one.

House of Gold by Natasha Solomons - A really interesting novel set in the years leading up to and during World War I, about the fictional Goldbaum family (apparently loosely based on the real life Rothschild family), a fabulously wealthy Jewish family with banks all throughout Europe, set in Vienna, England, and more.  I loved the main character, Greta; loved the time period it is set in; loved reading a historical book about Jewish characters which was not a Holocaust book, and just found the whole thing very interesting even though it is a bit of a quiet book.

Time and Regret by M.K. Tod - This novel goes back and forth between 1991, when a recently divorced woman finds her grandfather's World War I diaries and a cryptic note and goes to France to retrace his steps, and her grandfather's story from World War I.  Dual-time period historical novels are one of my favorite types of books, and this was a good one - interesting historical stuff, a little mystery, a little romance, and good characters.  This book definitely does a good job driving home the awfulness and senselessness of trench warfare.