“By doing nothing, you did everything. By taking no responsibility, you bear all responsibility.”
All the Broken Places is a 2022 historical fiction novel by John Boyne, and the sequel to his hugely successful story, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. The story centres around ninety-one-year-old Gretel Fernsby, a woman living in an affluent London mansion block but who doesn’t talk about her past living in Nazi Germany. One day, a new family moves into the apartment below her. Gretel can’t help but begin a friendship with the little boy, Henry, despite his presence bringing back memories she would rather forget. But, when she witnesses a violent altercation in the apartment below, Gretel’s hard-won self-contained existence threatens to shatter. A sweeping historical tale about a woman whose life has been haunted by the past, if you loved John Boyne’s poignantly-told story, join us at What We Reading for the best books like All the Broken Places!
Go As A River – Shelley Read
Kicking off our list of books like All the Broken Places is Shelley Read’s Go as a River. Nominated for Best Historical Fiction in the 2023 Goodreads Choice Awards, the story opens in 1948 where Victoria Nash is delivering peaches from her family’s Colorado farm to the local village. Along the way, she encounters a dishevelled stranger who stops to ask her the way. How she chooses to answer will unknowingly alter the course of both of their young lives.
Thus begins a mesmerising story of split-second choices and courageous acts that catapult Victoria from the only home she has ever known and toward a reckoning with loss, hope and her own untapped resilience. Set against the stunning backdrop of mid-century Colorado, Go as a River is a heart-wrenching coming-of-age tale and a drama of power, survival, love, truth and fate.
The Women – Kristin Hannah
One of the best historical fiction books from 2024, Kristin Hannah introduces readers to twenty-year-old nursing student Frances ‘Frankie’ McGrath in The Women. Raised in the sun-drenched world of Southern California to strict conservative parents, Frankie decides to join the Army Nurse Corps and follow her brother’s path all the way to Vietnam in 1965. In war, each day is a gamble between life and death, hope and betrayal, where friendships run deep, but can be shattered in an instant.
But, war is just the beginning for Frankie and her friends. The real battle lies in returning home to a country that has become fractured and divided. An America home to angry protestors and a population keen to forget all about Vietnam. Similar to All the Broken Places, The Women shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifices are too often overlooked.
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Only The Beautiful – Susan Meissner
When she loses her parents in an accident, sixteen-year-old Rosanne is taken in by the owners of a vineyard. However, she moves into Celine and Truman Calvert’s spacious home with a secret – Rosie sees colours when she hears sound. She had promised her mother she would never tell anyone about her ability, but the weight of her isolation soon proves to be too much. After letting down her guard, she finds herself pregnant, exiled from the Calvert’s home and bound for a home for unwed mothers.
After witnessing firsthand the rise of Adolf Hitler’s quest for hereditary purity, Helen Calvert, Truman’s sister, is ready to return home to America for good. But, when she arrives at her brother’s peaceful vineyard, she is shocked to learn what had happened to Rosie, a girl whom she had cared deeply for. Determined to find Rosie, Helen soon discovers that, whilst the war in Europe had been won, there are still plenty of terrifying battles to be fought back at home in Susan Meissner’s heart-wrenching story, Only the Beautiful.
The Little Liar – Mitch Albom
When the Nazis invade his home in Salonika, Greece, eleven-year-old Nico Krispis is discovered by a German officer. Nico has never once told a lie, and he is told by the officer that, to save his family, all he has to do is convince his fellow Jewish residents to board trains heading to ‘new homes’. Unaware of the truth harrowing truth behind these new homes, Nico goes to the station every day and reassures the passengers that their journey is safe. That is until he sees his own family being boarded into a large boxcar along with his neighbours.
From then on, Nico never tells the truth again. The Little Liar is Mitch Albom’s first book set during the Holocaust, and it interweaves Nico’s own story with his brother Sebastian and their schoolmate, Fanni. Like with All the Broken Places, Albom explores the consequences of what is said and done for a moving parable about honesty, survival, revenge and devotion.
The River We Remember – William Kent Krueger
On Memorial Day, as the people of Jewel, Minnesota congregate to remember the sacrifice made by so many sons in the wars of the past, the half-clothed body of Jimmy Quinn, the wealthy landowner is discovered. Investigation into the murder is handed to Sheriff Brody Dern, a decorated war hero still carrying the scars of his service. However, before he even has the results of the autopsy on his desk, Brody is forced to wrestle with vicious rumours circulating that the culprit must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American with a Japanese wife.
Caught up in the torrent of anger as it sweeps through Jewel are a war widow and her son, the enigmatic publisher of the local newspaper, a tired deputy and a crusading female lawyer, all of whom struggle with their own tragic histories. A riveting mystery and a compelling portrait of midcentury American life, William Kent Krueger’s The River We Remember is the perfect follow-up for any readers who loved All the Broken Places.
The Paris Daughter – Kristin Harmel
In Paris in 1939, young mothers Elise and Juliette quickly become friends after meeting in the beautiful Bois de Boulogne. As the shadow of war looms across Europe, neither mother is prepared for how much their lives are about to change.
When Elise becomes a target of the German occupation, she entrusts Juliette with the single most precious thing in her life – her young daughter. But, nowhere is safe during times of war, not even Juliette’s quaint little bookshop, Libairie des Reves. When a bomb falls on their neighbourhood, Juliette’s world is upended with it. As the war comes to an end, Elise returns to reunite with her daughter, only to discover her friend’s bookstore reduced to rubble and neither she nor her daughter, are anywhere to be found. As her search leads her to New York, Elise and Juliette prepare themselves for one final, fateful encounter in Kristin Harmel’s 2023 historical fiction story, The Paris Daughter.
The Covenant Of Water – Abraham Verghese
Spanning between 1900 and 1977, Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family afflicted by a strange and unnerving occurrence: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning. And, in Kerala, water is everywhere.
The story opens at the turn of the century with a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s Christian community. Still grieving her father’s passing, she is sent by boat to her wedding, where she meets her forty-year-old husband for the first time. Similar to Gretel in All the Broken Places, what follows is an extraordinary tale of a life full of joy, triumph, hardship and loss all from the perspective of an unforgettable narrator. One of the best books about a bygone India, The Covenant of Water is also a stunning meditation on the hardships of past generations for the sake of those alive now.
All The Colors Of The Dark – Chris Whitaker
1975 is a time of profound change across America. The Vietnam War is coming to a close. Mohammed Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And, in the sleepy Missouri town of Monta Clare, girls are vanishing. When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges – Patch, a local boy with one eye, who saves the girl but, in doing so, leaves heartache in its wake.
Patch and those who love him soon discover how the line between triumph and tragedy has never been thinner. And that their search for answers will soon lead to them uncovering truths that could mean losing one another. Spanning decades, Chris Whitaker’s All the Colors of the Dark is a missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller and a love story, all of which carry unique twists that help make it one of the most compelling books like All the Broken Places.
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Looking For Jane – Heather Marshall
When Angela Creighton discovers a mysterious letter containing an earth-shattering confession, she is determined to find its intended receiver. Her search soon takes her back to the 1970s, when a group of intrepid women ran an underground abortion network in Toronto, known only by its codename: Jane.
In 1971, as a teenager, Dr Evelyn Taylor was sent to a home for ‘fallen’ women where she was forced to surrender her baby for adoption. Despite constant threats of arrest and raids by the police, she joins the Jane Network, resolute in giving women the choice she never had. After discovering a secret about her own family, Nancy Mitchell begins to question everything she thought she knew. After unexpectedly becoming pregnant, she finds her way to the Jane Network and a place alongside Dr Taylor within the network’s ranks. A timely, searing and powerful debut novel similar to All the Broken Places, Heather Marshall’s Looking for Jane is a story of three women, a long-lost letter, a woman’s right to choose and a mother’s love.
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
