Books like “The Nightingale”

What to read after “The Nightingale” by Kristin Hannah: 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” and “War novel”
- 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
Azincourt
Bernard Cornwell · 2008
Same genre: “Historical fiction” and “War novel”
- 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.
3
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini · 2007
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
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 Sunne in Splendour
Sharon Kay Penman · 1982
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Rebellion
A retelling of the life of Richard III, from his boyhood in a divided England to his brief reign. Set against the Wars of the Roses, it follows the Yorkist claim to the throne, the loyalties that bind Richard, and the rumour and betrayal that surround his name.
5
Salt to the Sea
Ruta Sepetys · 2016
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
Four young refugees cross a frozen East Prussia in the winter of 1945, each hiding a secret and hoping to reach a ship that will carry them west. Their paths merge among the crowds fleeing the advancing Soviet army, bound for a vessel whose fate none of them suspect.
6
The Bronze Horseman
Paullina Simons · 2000
Similar setting: “War Fiction”
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.
7
Schindler's Ark
Thomas Keneally · 1982
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
In German-occupied Poland, Oskar Schindler, a Czech businessman and opportunist, employs Jewish workers in his factory. As the war turns and deportations intensify, he uses his wealth and connections to shield them, at growing personal risk.
8
A Train in Winter
Caroline Moorehead · 2011
Similar setting: “War Fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
Between 1941 and 1943 the German and French police arrested hundreds of women who had worked for the Resistance. Drawn from interviews and archives, this book follows 230 of them from prison in France onto the trains to Auschwitz, and the friendships that sustained them.
9
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ernest Hemingway · 1940
Same genre: “Historical fiction” and “War novel”
- War Fiction
- Survival
Robert Jordan, an American volunteer, joins a band of Republican guerrillas in the Spanish mountains to blow up a bridge. Over a few days he falls for Maria, a young woman scarred by war, and weighs duty, love and the near certainty that the mission will cost him his life.
10
World Without End
Ken Follett · 2007
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- Forbidden Love
- Survival
Two centuries after The Pillars of the Earth, four children in Kingsbridge witness a killing that binds their fates together. As plague sweeps the land, they struggle with love, ambition and the harsh rules of their age.
11
Pachinko
Min Jin Lee · 2017
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
A young woman in colonial Korea, Sunja, leaves home for Japan with a husband she barely knows and raises a family that lives as outsiders for generations. Through war and poverty, the household holds on to its dignity and its secrets.
12
Gone with the Wind
Margaret Mitchell · 1936
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
Spoiled Southern belle Scarlett O'Hara sees her world torn apart by the American Civil War. Determined to rebuild her family's plantation and her fortune, she schemes and marries her way through the ruins of the Old South, chasing a man she cannot have.