Books like The Wreckage by Michael Crummey

Sisters Vianne and Isabelle are pulled into the turmoil of World War II, each forging a path of courage and resistance against the Nazi occupation of France.

Penelope Keeling reflects on a bohemian childhood, wartime romance, and a priceless family portrait as her children debate its future.

On a secluded Australian island, a child‑less married couple quietly runs a lighthouse until a boat unexpectedly leaves a baby ashore, altering their isolated life.

When a whale beaches itself on the shore of the remote coastal town of Paradise Deep, the last thing any of the townspeople expect to find inside it is a man, silent and reeking of fish, but remarkably alive. The discovery of this mysterious person, soon christened Judah, sets the town scrambling for answers as its most prominent citizens weigh in on whether he is man or beast, blessing or curse, miracle or demon. Though Judah is a shocking addition, the town of Paradise Deep is already full of unusual characters. King-me Sellers, self-appointed patriarch, has it in for an inscrutable woman known only as Devine’s Widow, with whom he has a decades-old feud. Her granddaughter, Mary Tryphena, is just a child when Judah washes ashore, but finds herself tied to him all her life in ways she never expects. Galore is the story of the saga that develops between these families, full of bitterness and love, spanning two centuries. With Paradise Deep, award-winning novelist Michael Crummey imagines a realm where the line between the everyday and the otherworldly is impossible to discern. Sprawling and intimate, stark and fantastical, Galore is a novel about the power of stories to shape and sustain us.

A heart-wrenching tale of hope in the face of unimaginable cruelty in World War II's Pacific Theater, featuring an American prisoner of war and a woman forced to confront her past in the besieged island of Hawaii.

Former Federal Agent Aaron Falk returns to his drought‑hit hometown to attend the funeral of his best friend Luke and unwittingly rekindles a decades‑old mystery of murder, false alibis, and buried secrets.

An inspiring true story of a WWII pilot’s survival, resilience, and redemption, examined through detailed battlefield context and human courage.

During World War II, there were few fates that could befall a soldier so hellish as internment in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. To this day, many survivors -- most of whom are now in their 80s -- still cannot talk about their experiences without unearthing terrible memories. Surviving the Sword gives voice to these tens of thousands of Allied POWs and offers us a powerful reminder of the terror and deprivations of war and the resilience of the human spirit. In this important book, Brian MacArthur draws on the diaries of American, British, Dutch, and Australian Fepows (Far Eastern prisoners of war), some of whose recollections are published here for the first time. These soldiers wrote and kept their diaries, in secret, because they were determined to record for posterity how they were starved and beaten, marched almost to death, or transported on "hellships"; how their fellows were summarily executed by guards or felled by the thousands by tropical diseases; and how they were used as slave labor -- most notoriously on the Burma-Thailand railway (later depicted in The Bridge on the River Kwai). The diaries excerpted here make plain why the Fepows have always believed that their brutal treatment by Japanese and Korean guards was literally incomprehensible to those who did not live it. - Jacket flap.

Set during World War II, this novel follows surgeon Dorrigo Evans as he struggles to protect his men on the Thailand‑Burma Death Railway, while an earlier love affair haunts his conscience.

Re‑entering a post‑war community, a nineteen‑year‑old former convict finds that his return threatens not only his own family but the whole town, revealing hidden secrets and a strained mother‑son bond.

In the 21st century, the sole survivor of a remote Newfoundland island resists forced resettlement, holding onto his homeland and past as surrounding residents leave.