Riot Recommendation

16 Of Your Favorite Stories About Women In WW2

Jamie Canaves

Contributing Editor

Jamie Canavés is the Tailored Book Recommendations coordinator and Unusual Suspects mystery newsletter writer–in case you’re wondering what you do with a Liberal Arts degree. She’s never met a beach she didn’t like, always says yes to dessert, loves ‘80s nostalgia, all forms of entertainment, and can hold a conversation using only gifs. You can definitely talk books with her on Litsy and Goodreads. Depending on social media’s stability maybe also Twitter and Bluesky.

This Riot Recommendation listing your favorite stories about women in WW2 is sponsored by The Huntress by Kate Quinn.

The Huntress cover image“If you loved The Tattooist of Auschwitz, read The Huntress.” —The Washington Post Already Named one of Marie Claire’s Best Women’s Fiction Books and One of BookBub’s Biggest Books of the Year! From the author of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling novel, THE ALICE NETWORK, comes a fascinating new historical novel about a battle-haunted English journalist and a Russian female bomber pilot who join forces to track the Huntress, a Nazi war criminal gone to ground in America.


From nonfiction gems like Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures to historical fiction like Lauren Wilkinson’s American Spy, women’s stories throughout history are finally taking center stage and we can’t get enough. That’s why we asked you to share with us your favorite stories about women in WW2. We started with Transcription by Kate Atkinson and you continued with a great list of nonfiction and historical fiction:

Code Girls by Liza Mundy

The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich

Blackout by Connie Willis

All Clear by Connie Willis

Silver Wings, Santiago Sky by Janet Dailey

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth E. Wein

Jambusters by Julie Summers

Dear Mrs Bird by A. J. Pearce

Code Name: Lise: The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII’s Most Highly Decorated Spy by Larry Loftis

A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II by Elizabeth E. Wein

The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict

The Light Over London by Julia Kelly

Josephine Baker’s Last Dance by Sherry Jones

The Parisians by Marius Gabriel

The Beantown Girls by Jane Healey

The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff