Books like “Salt to the Sea”

What to read after “Salt to the Sea” by Ruta Sepetys: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr · 2014
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
During the German occupation of France, a blind girl and her father flee Paris for the walled city of Saint-Malo, carrying a valuable jewel. In Germany, an orphan with a gift for radio repairs is drawn into the war machine. Their separate paths move slowly toward the same besieged town in August 1944.
2
The Nightingale
Kristin Hannah · 2015
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
In occupied France, two sisters take very different roads through the war. One keeps her daughters safe in the countryside while sheltering fugitives; the other joins the resistance, guiding downed airmen over the Pyrenees. Their choices strain their bond and put both of them in constant danger.
3
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini · 2007
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
Mariam and Laila, born a generation apart in Afghanistan, are forced together by marriage to the same violent man. Through decades of war and loss, the two women become each other's only home and take great risks for the chance of a different life.
4
The Book Thief
Markus Zusak · 2005
Same genre: “Historical fiction” and “Young adult fiction”
- War Fiction
- Found Family
Narrated by Death, the story follows Liesel Meminger, a girl sent to live with a foster family in Nazi Germany. She steals books, shares them with a Jewish man hiding in the basement, and grows up amid bombs, loss and small acts of kindness.
5
Master and Commander
Patrick O'Brian · 1969
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
In 1800, Royal Navy captain Jack Aubrey takes command of a small brig and meets the ship's surgeon, Stephen Maturin, a naturalist and secret intelligence agent. Their friendship grows as the crew pursues a Spanish frigate across the Mediterranean and Atlantic.
6
Code Name Verity
Elizabeth Wein · 2012
Same genre: “Historical fiction” and “Young adult fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
A British wireless operator and a pilot become close friends before a mission goes wrong over occupied France. Captured by the Gestapo, the operator is forced to write down what she knows, and her account of the two women slowly reveals more than it first seems.
7
The Long Ships
Frans G. Bengtsson · 1941
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- Nautical Adventure
- Survival
The Viking Red Orm sails from his Scandinavian home in the late tenth century and is carried through raids, courts and distant seas, from Andalusia to the Byzantine guard. A picaresque saga of raids, treasure and shifting faith, told with dry humour and a wide view of the Viking world.
8
The Terror
Dan Simmons · 2007
Similar setting: “Nautical Adventure”
In 1845 two Royal Navy ships sail to find the Northwest Passage and vanish into the Arctic ice. As the crews endure cold, scurvy and starvation, they are stalked across the frozen waste by a creature that should not exist.
9
The Bronze Horseman
Paullina Simons · 2000
Similar setting: “War Fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
In Leningrad in 1941, as the German army tightens its siege, Tatiana meets Alexander, a young officer with a secret. Their love is forbidden by her family and by the war, but through hunger, loss and the frozen winter they hold on to each other and to the hope of survival.
10
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
Alfred Lansing · 1959
Similar setting: “Nautical Adventure”
In 1914 Ernest Shackleton sets out to cross Antarctica; in 1915 his ship is crushed by the ice and the crew is left stranded. This account follows their months on drifting floes and the desperate open-boat journey he makes to seek rescue.
11
Azincourt
Bernard Cornwell · 2008
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
Outlawed archer Nicholas Hook joins Henry V's army as it invades France. Mired in a brutal siege and heavily outnumbered at Azincourt, he and his comrades face a battle that will decide the fate of a kingdom.
12
The Wager
David Grann · 2023
Similar setting: “Nautical Adventure”
- Nautical Adventure
- Survival
In 1740 a British warship hunting a Spanish treasure galleon is wrecked off Patagonia. Months later two groups of survivors reach South America with opposing stories, and a court martial must decide which men were heroes and which were mutineers.