Books like 'A Blessing on the Moon'
Readers who enjoyed A Blessing on the Moon by Joseph Skibell also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical fantasy 20th century military, war & conflict historical-fiction ww2 magical-realism religion war magic
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The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 91 ratingsBarcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals from its war wounds, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer's son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julian Carax. But when he sets out to find the author's other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written... -
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 72 ratings“Spectacular...an absorbing and distinguished work...The House of the Spirits...is a unique achievement, both personal witness and possible allegory of the past, present, and future of Latin America... -
Dead Eagles by Phil Ward
Rated: 4.47 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsIn this sequel to Those Who Dare, U.S.Major John Randal, Commander of Strategic Raiding Forces is back, leading a crew of British Commandos, Royal Marines and Royal Navy raiders on bigger and bolder missions to foil Hitler's Third Reich. Off the Gold Coast colony in Africa, the Germans are operating a naval intelligence ring that gathers information about British convoys in the southern sea-lane... -
Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsAt Thermopylae, a rocky mountain pass in northern Greece, the feared and admired Spartan soldiers stood three hundred strong. Theirs was a suicide mission, to hold the pass against the invading millions of the mighty Persian army.Day after bloody day they withstood the terrible onslaught, buying time for the Greeks to rally their forces...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction military war 20th-century action-adventure adult ancient-civilization -
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Excalibur by Bernard Cornwell
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsIn The Winter King and Enemy of God Bernard Cornwell demonstrated his astonishing ability to make the oft-told legend of King Arthur fresh and new for our time. Now, in this riveting final volume of The Warlord Chronicles, Cornwell tells the unforgettable tale of Arthur's final struggles against the Saxons and his last attempts to triumph over a ruined marriage and ravaged dreams...Categorized as:
historical-fiction magic magical-realism military war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
Signal Moon by Kate Quinn
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA short story about an impossible connection across two centuries that could make the difference between peace or war.Yorkshire, 1943. Lily Baines, a bright young debutante increasingly ground down by an endless war, has traded in her white gloves for a set of headphones. It’s her job to intercept enemy naval communications and send them to Bletchley Park for decryption... -
The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsThe ruling Asharites of Al-Rassan have come from the desert sands, but over centuries, seduced by the sensuous pleasures of their new land, their stern piety has eroded. The Asharite empire has splintered into decadent city-states led by warring petty kings... -
The Murmur of Bees by Sofía Segovia
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsFrom a beguiling voice in Mexican fiction comes an astonishing novel—her first to be translated into English—about a mysterious child with the power to change a family’s history in a country on the verge of revolution.From the day that old Nana Reja found a baby abandoned under a bridge, the life of a small Mexican town forever changed... -
In the Land of Armadillos: Stories by Helen Maryles Shankman
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA debut collection of linked stories from a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, set in a German-occupied town in Poland, where tales of myth and folklore meet the real-life monsters of the Nazi invasion.1942. With the Nazi Party at the height of its power, the occupying army empties Poland’s towns and cities of their Jewish populations...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction magic magical-realism war ww2 20th-century 21st-century -
A Prince Without a Kingdom by Timothée de Fombelle
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis was the only treasure that Vango was after: the secret of his life.Vango has been in danger for as long as he can remember. He has spent his life running along rooftops, fleeing to mysterious islands, and abandoning those he loves in order to protect them from the demons of his past. But Vango will not run for much longer... -
Aztec by Gary Jennings
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsAztec is the extraordinary story of the last and greatest native civilization of North America... -
The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsFifth century Britain is a country of chaos and division after the Roman withdrawal. This is the world of young Merlin, the illegitimate child of a South Wales princess who will not reveal to her son his father's true identity. Yet Merlin is an extraordinary child, aware at the earliest age that he possesses a great natural gift - the Sight...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction magic magical-realism war 20th-century action-adventure arthurian -
River God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt by Wilbur Smith
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsTanus is the fair-haired young lion of a warrior whom the gods have decreed will lead Egypt's army in a bold attempt to reunite the Kingdom's shattered halves... -
The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 69 ratingsThe Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time... -
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The Ballad of the White Horse by G.K. Chesterton
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe Ballad of the White Horse is one of the last great epic poems in the English language. On the one hand it describes King Alfred's battle against the Danes in 878. On the other hand it is a timeless allegory about the ongoing battle between Christianity and the forces of nihilistic heathenism...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction religion spirituality war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
World at War, 1944 by Mary Pope Osborne
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe first Magic Tree House(R) Super Edition--and Jack and Annie's most dangerous mission ever in the scariest time the world has ever known--World War II... -
The Philosopher's War by Tom Miller
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe second book in the thrilling series that began with The Philosopher’s Flight finds Robert Canderelli Weekes as a rookie Rescue and Evacuation flier on the front lines of World War I in France. He came to save lives, but has no idea how far he’ll have to go to win the war... -
The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsBarcelona, 1957. It is Christmas, and Daniel Sempere and his wife Bea have much to celebrate. They have a beautiful new baby son named Julian, and their close friend Fermín Romero de Torres is about to be wed. But their joy is eclipsed when a mysterious stranger visits the Sempere bookshop and threatens to divulge a terrible secret that has been buried for two decades in the city's dark past... -
The Most Precious of Cargoes by Jean-Claude Grumberg
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSet during the height of World War II, a powerful and unsettling tale about a woodcutter and his wife, who finds a mysterious parcel thrown from a passing train.Once upon a time in an enormous forest lived a woodcutter and his wife. The woodcutter is very poor and a war rages around them, making it difficult for them to put food on the table. Yet every night, his wife prays for a child... -
The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsIn Berlin in 1941 during humanity's darkest hour, three unforgettable young women must act with courage and love to survive, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dovekeepers and The Marriage of Opposites Alice Hoffman. In Berlin, at the time when the world changed, Hanni Kohn knows she must send her twelve-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction magic magical-realism religion spirituality war ww2 -
The Citadel of the Autarch by Gene Wolfe
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsVolume Four of the Book of the New Sun. Severian the Torturer continues his epic journey across the lands of Urth, a journey as fraught with peril as it is with wonder. Exiled from his guild he is an outcast, but his travels are woven with strange portents. The Claw of the Conciliator, relic of a prophet and promise of a new age, flames to life in his hands...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction magic religion spirituality war 20th-century action-adventure -
The She-Wolf by Maurice Druon
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratings‘This was the original game of thrones’ George R.R. MartinCharles IV is now king of France and his sister is Edward II of England’s Queen. Having been imprisoned by Edward as leader of the rebellious English barons, Roger Mortimer escapes to France, where he joins the war against the English Aquitaine...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction military war 20th-century action-adventure adult -
A Single Swallow by Zhang Ling
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe eagerly awaited English translation of award-winning author Zhang Ling’s epic and intimate novel about the devastation of war, forgiveness, redemption, and the enduring power of love.On the day of the historic 1945 Jewel Voice Broadcast—in which Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender to the Allied forces, bringing an end to World War II—three men, flush with jubilation, made a pact... -
Legend by David Gemmell
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsDruss, Captain of the Axe, was the stuff of legends. But even as the stories grew in the telling, Druss himself grew older. He turned his back on his own legend and retreated to a mountain lair to await his old enemy, death. Meanwhile, barbarian hordes were on the march. Nothing could stand in their way. Druss reluctantly agreed to come out of retirement... -
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The King Beyond the Gate by David Gemmell
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsA century has passed since the heroic defence of Dros Delnoch. But the people of the Drenai face a new terror: a mad emperor kept in power by two forces of unsurpassed evil. The Joinings are werebeasts of awesome power. The Dark Templars are warrior-priests whose fighting skills are without equal. Against them, the Drenai face certain defeat... -
The Deer and the Cauldron: The First Book by Jin Yong
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsOn the Dragon Throne of China sits the young Manchu Emperor Kang Xi. Back in 1644, his great-uncle Dorgon broke through the Great Wall from Manchuria in the north-east and took the Imperial capital, Peking. Now twenty years later, the Manchus are quelling the last sparks of Chinese resistance, hounding down members of the underground movement known as the Triad Secret Society...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure adult ancient-china -
The Mahabharata by Jean-Claude Carrière
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA unique dramatization of India's greatest epic poem, fifteen times longer than the Bible, The Mahabharata has played to enthralled audiences throughout Europe, the Far East and America. Regarded as the culmination of Peter Brook's extraordinary research into the possibilities of theatre, the production has been hailed as the 'theatrical event of this century' (Sunday Times)... -
The Secret Book of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhen a woman discovers a rare book that has connections to her past, long-held secrets about her missing sister and their childhood spent in the English countryside during World War II are revealed.In the war-torn London of 1939, fourteen-year-old Hazel and five-year-old Flora are evacuated to a rural village to escape the horrors of the Second World War... -
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 53 ratingsProbably García Márquez finest and most famous work. One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of a mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, alive with unforgettable men and women, and with a truth and understanding that strike the soul... -
Harpist in the Wind by Patricia A. McKillip
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsIn the midst of conflict and unrest the Prince of Hed solves the puzzle of his future when he learns to harp the wind, discovers who the shape changers are, and understands his own relationship to Deth, harpist of the wizard Ohm... -
Island of Ghosts by Gillian Bradshaw
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsAriantes is a Sarmatian, a barbarian warrior-prince, uprooted from his home and customs and thrust into the honorless lands of the Romans. The victims of a wartime pact struck with the emperor Marcus Aurelius to ensure the future of Sarmatia, Ariantes and his troop of accomplished horsemen are sent to Hadrian's Wall...Categorized as:
historical-fiction spirituality war 20th-century action-adventure adult ancient-civilization book -
Seven Summer Nights by Harper Fox
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIt’s 1946, and the dust of World War Two has just begun to settle. When famous archaeologist Rufus Denby returns to London, his life and reputation are as devastated as the city around him.He’s used to the most glamorous of excavations, but can’t turn down the offer of a job in rural Sussex. It’s a refuge, and the only means left to him of scraping a living... -
Day of War by Cliff Graham
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn ancient Israel, at the crossroads of the great trading routes, a man named Benaiah is searching for a fresh start in life. He has joined a band of soldiers led by a warlord named David, seeking to bury the past that refuses to leave him. Their ragged army is disgruntled and full of reckless men. Some are loyal to David, but others are only with him for the promise of captured wealth...Categorized as:
historical-fiction military religion spirituality war ww2 20th-century action-adventure -
The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 7 ratingsDuring the Great War, a combat nurse searches for her brother, believed dead in the trenches despite eerie signs that suggest otherwise, in this hauntingly beautiful historical novel with a speculative twist from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bear and the NightingaleJanuary 1918... -
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Max in the Land of Lies: A Tale of World War II by Adam Gidwitz
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsMax Bretzfeld's dangerous mission begins when he returns home to Berlin as a British spy in the much-anticipated second book in Adam Gidwitz's duology that began with Max in the House of Spies.Max was on a mission. Well, two missions. One mission his British spymasters knew about: infiltrating the Funkhaus, the center of Nazi radio and propaganda. The other, they did not: finding his parents... -
The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsJeanette Winterson’s novels have established her as one of the most important young writers in world literature. The Passion is perhaps her most highly acclaimed work, a modern classic that confirms her special claim on the novel...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism war 20th-century adult audiobook -
The Martyr's Song by Ted Dekker
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsWhat would you die for?That's the question suddenly thrust upon a small band of women and children in Bosnia at the close of World War II. When a group of bitter soldiers stumble upon their peaceful village, they suddenly face an insidious evil...and the ultimate test.It is then, in the midst of chaos and pain that the Martyr's Song is first heard...Categorized as:
historical-fiction religion spirituality war ww2 20th-century action-adventure audiobook -
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 46 ratingsA masterful epic of magic, politics, war, and the power of love and hate — from the renowned author of The Fionavar Tapestry and Children of Earth and Sky.Tigana is the magical story of a beleaguered land struggling to be free. It is the tale of a people so cursed by the black sorcery of a cruel despotic king that even the name of their once-beautiful homeland cannot be spoken or remembered.. -
Flanders by Patricia Anthony
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"A harrowing and beautiful novel, demonstrating — again — that Patricia Anthony is one of our great writers." — Publishers WeeklyIn this gritty look at World War I's trench warfare, a young American sharpshooter ventures into no man's land each night to be ready by daybreak for the grim business of slaying record numbers of enemies...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction magical-realism military war 20th-century adult book -
The Royal Librarian by Daisy Wood
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA royal palace. A closed book. A betrayal that will echo through generations…Windsor, 1940: War rages, and as bombs rain down across Britain, nowhere is safe: not even a royal palace.Secretly tasked with foiling a suspected plot, Sophie Klein is placed in the Royal Library at Windsor castle, where the princesses reside... -
The Mind's Eye by K.C. Finn
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA girl with a telepathic gift finds a boy clinging to his last hope during the war-torn climate of Europe, 1940. At fifteen, Kit Cavendish is one the oldest evacuees to escape London at the start of the Second World War due to a long term illness that sees her stuck in a wheelchair most of the time...Categorized as:
historical-fiction military war ww2 20th-century action-adventure book coming-of-age -
The Beast's Garden by Kate Forsyth
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIt's August 1939 in Germany, and Ava's world is in turmoil. To save her father, she must marry a young Nazi officer, Leo von Löwenstein, who works for Hitler's spy chief in Berlin. However, she hates and fears the brutal Nazi regime, and finds herself compelled to stand against it.Ava joins an underground resistance movement that seeks to help victims survive the horrors of the German war machine... -
The Watchmaker's Daughter by Dianne Haley
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsHiding the worn piece of paper among her father’s watch deliveries, her eyes fill with tears at the memory of her brave friend walking towards the Nazi soldiers, and the sharp sound of gun fire. Her friend sacrificed herself so that she could deliver this message... -
The Coldest War by Ian Tregillis
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSomeone is killing Britain's warlocks.Twenty-two years after the Second World War, a precarious balance of power maintains the peace between Great Britain and the USSR. For decades, the warlocks have been all that stand between the British Empire and the Soviet Union-- a vast domain stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the shores of the English Channel...Categorized as:
historical-fiction magic magical-realism military war ww2 20th-century action-adventure -
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Tuscan Rose by Belinda Alexandra
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFrom an international bestselling author comes a richly woven tale of passion, longing, witchcraft, and magic set in Italy during World War II.A magical, richly woven World War II– era saga filled with passion, secrets, beauty, and horror from internationally acclaimed bestselling author Belinda Alexandra. FLORENCE, 1914...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction war ww2 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsNewly orphaned Peggy Grahame is caught off-guard when she first arrives at her family's ancestral estate. Her eccentric uncle Enos drives away her only new acquaintance, Pat, a handsome British scholar, then leaves Peggy to fend for herself. But she is not alone. The house is full of mysteries and ghosts...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction humor literary-fiction war 20th-century action-adventure book -
The Dollmaker of Krakow by R.M. Romero
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn the land of dolls, there is magic.In the land of humans, there is war.Everywhere there is pain.But together there is hope. Karolina is a living doll whose king and queen have been overthrown. But when a strange wind spirits her away from the Land of the Dolls, she finds herself in Krakow, Poland, in the company of the Dollmaker, a man with an unusual power and a marked past... -
The Circus Train by Amita Parikh
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAt the World of Wonders, Europe's most magnificent travelling circus, every moment is full of magic, and nothing is as it seems--especially for the people who put on the show Lena Papadopoulos has never quite found her place within the circus, even as the daughter of the extraordinary headlining illusionist, Theo... -
Hollow City by Ransom Riggs
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 76 ratingsThis second novel begins in 1940, immediately after the first book ended. Having escaped Miss Peregrine’s island by the skin of their teeth, Jacob and his new friends must journey to London, the peculiar capital of the world. Along the way, they encounter new allies, a menagerie of peculiar animals, and other unexpected surprises...Categorized as:
historical-fiction magic magical-realism war ww2 20th-century action-adventure audiobook -
The Firebrand by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsBlending archaeological fact and legend, the myths of the gods and the feats of heroes, Marion Zimmer Bradley breathes new life into the classic tale of the Trojan War-reinventing larger-than-life figures as living people engaged in a desperate struggle that dooms both the victors and the vanquished, their fate seen through the eyes of Kassandra-priestess, princess, and passionate woman with the...
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