Books like 'The Orphan Master's Son'
Readers who enjoyed The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical mystery action / adventure military, war & conflict thriller historical-fiction literary-fiction politics dystopia drama
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Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark T. Sullivan
Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsBased on the true story of a forgotten hero, Beneath a Scarlet Sky is the triumphant, epic tale of one young man’s incredible courage and resilience during one of history’s darkest hours. Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are numbered...Categorized as:
coming-of-age crime drama historical-fiction journey literary-fiction politics realistic -
![The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah]()
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 46 ratingsAlaska, 1974.Unpredictable. Unforgiving. Untamed.For a family in crisis, the ultimate test of survival.Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier...Categorized as:
coming-of-age crime dark drama historical-fiction literary-fiction realistic survival -
![Daughters of the Dragon: A Comfort Woman's Story by William Andrews]()
Daughters of the Dragon: A Comfort Woman's Story by William Andrews
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsDuring World War II, the Japanese forced 200,000 young Korean women to be sex slaves or “comfort women” for their soldiers. This is one woman’s riveting story of strength, courage and promises kept.In 1943, the Japanese tear young Jae-hee and her sister from their peaceful family farm to be comfort women for the Imperial Army...Categorized as:
dark drama historical-fiction journey literary-fiction politics realistic social-commentary -
![The Border by Don Winslow]()
The Border by Don Winslow
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe explosive, highly anticipated conclusion to the epic Cartel trilogy from the New York Times bestselling author of The Force.What do you do when there are no borders? When the lines you thought existed simply vanish? How do you plant your feet to make a stand when you no longer know what side you’re on?The war has come home... -
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![The Man Who Loved Dogs by Leonardo Padura]()
The Man Who Loved Dogs by Leonardo Padura
Rated: 4.45 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsA gripping novel about the assassination of Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in 1940In The Man Who Loved Dogs, Leonardo Padura brings a noir sensibility to one of the most fascinating and complex political narratives of the past hundred years: the assassination of Leon Trotsky by Ramón Mercader... -
![Winter of the World by Ken Follett]()
Winter of the World by Ken Follett
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsWinter of the World picks up right where the first book left off, as its five interrelated families—American, German, Russian, English, Welsh—enter a time of enormous social, political, and economic turmoil, beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, through the Spanish Civil War and the great dramas of World War II, up to the explosions of the American and Soviet atomic bombs... -
![Kane & Abel by Jeffrey Archer]()
Kane & Abel by Jeffrey Archer
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsBorn on the same day near the turn of the century on opposite sides of the world, both men are brought together by fate and the quest of a dream. These two men -- ambitious, powerful, ruthless -- are locked in a relentless struggle to build an empire, fuelled by their all-consuming hatred...Categorized as:
classics coming-of-age crime drama historical-fiction literary-fiction politics realistic -
![The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón]()
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 Alice Network by Kate Quinn]()
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsAn alternate cover for this ASIN can be found here.In an enthralling new historical novel from national bestselling author Kate Quinn, two women—a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947—are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption. 1947...Categorized as:
coming-of-age crime drama historical-fiction journey literary-fiction realistic survival -
![Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly]()
Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsNEW YORK TIMES "BESTSELLER For readers of "The Nightingale" and "Sarah s Key, " inspired by the life of a real World War II heroine, this powerful debut novel reveals an incredible story of love, redemption, and terrible secrets that were hidden for decades. New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate and a new love on the horizon...Categorized as:
coming-of-age crime drama historical-fiction journey literary-fiction politics realistic -
![Fall of Giants by Ken Follett]()
Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 72 ratingsThis is an epic of love, hatred, war and revolution. This is a huge novel that follows five families through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for votes for women. It is 1911. The Coronation Day of King George V. The Williams, a Welsh coal-mining family is linked by romance and enmity to the Fitzherberts, aristocratic coal-mine owners...Categorized as:
classics communism drama historical-fiction journey literary-fiction politics realistic -
![City of Thieves by David Benioff]()
City of Thieves by David Benioff
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 68 ratingsDuring the Nazis’ brutal siege of Leningrad, Lev Beniov is arrested for looting and thrown into the same cell as a handsome deserter named Kolya. Instead of being executed, Lev and Kolya are given a shot at saving their own lives by complying with an outrageous directive: secure a dozen eggs for a powerful Soviet colonel to use in his daughter’s wedding cake... -
![The Auschwitz Escape by Joel C. Rosenberg]()
The Auschwitz Escape by Joel C. Rosenberg
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA terrible darkness has fallen upon Jacob Weisz's beloved Germany. The Nazi regime, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, has surged to power and now hold Germany by the throat. All non-Aryans - especially Jews like Jacob and his family - are treated like dogs.When tragedy strikes during one terrible night of violence, Jacob flees and joins rebel forces working to undermine the regime... -
![Confessions by Jaume Cabré]()
Confessions by Jaume Cabré
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAt 60, Adrià Ardèvol re-examines his life before his memory is systematically deleted. He recalls a loveless childhood where the family antique business and his father’s study become the centre of his world; where a treasured Storioni violin retains the shadows of a crime committed many years earlier... -
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![Tai-Pan by James Clavell]()
Tai-Pan by James Clavell
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsAn Alternate Cover of this edition can be found here.Set in the turbulent days of the founding of Hong Kong in the 1840s, Tai-Pan is the story of Dirk Struan, the ruler - the Tai-Pan - of the most powerful trading company in the Far East. He is also a pirate, an opium smuggler, and a master manipulator of men... -
![The One Man by Andrew Gross]()
The One Man by Andrew Gross
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 24 ratings1944. Physics professor Alfred Mendl is separated from his family and sent to the men’s camp, where all of his belongings are tossed on a roaring fire. His books, his papers, his life’s work. The Nazis have no idea what they have just destroyed. And without that physical record, Alfred is one of only two people in the world with his particular knowledge... -
![Mila 18 by Leon Uris]()
Mila 18 by Leon Uris
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsIt was a time of crisis, a time of tragedy and a time of transcendent courage and determination. Leon Uris's novel is set in the midst of the ghetto uprising that defied Nazi tyranny, as the Jews of Warsaw boldly met Wehrmacht tanks with homemade weapons and bare fists...Categorized as:
classics drama historical-fiction literary-fiction politics war 20th-century action-adventure -
![The Colonels by W.E.B. Griffin]()
The Colonels by W.E.B. Griffin
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsThey were the professionals, the men who had been toughened by combat in the mine-laden fields of Europe, in Korea, in Greece, in Indochina. Now, in the twilight of a dying decade, they must return to the United States to forge a new type of American soldier--one to be tested on the beaches of Cuba and in a new war yet to come..Categorized as:
crime historical-fiction literary-fiction suspense war thriller action-adventure adult -
![Chess Story by Stefan Zweig]()
Chess Story by Stefan Zweig
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsChess Story, also known as The Royal Game, is the Austrian master Stefan Zweig's final achievement, completed in Brazilian exile and sent off to his American publisher only days before his suicide in 1942. It is the only story in which Zweig looks at Nazism, and he does so with characteristic emphasis on the psychological... -
![All We Have Left by Wendy Mills]()
All We Have Left by Wendy Mills
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTwo girls. Two lives. One event that changed them—and the world—forever.Now: Sixteen-year-old Jesse is used to living with the echoes of the past. After her older brother died in the September 11th attacks, her dad filled their home with anger and grief. When Jesse gets caught up with the wrong crowd, one thoughtless decision turns her life upside down...Categorized as:
coming-of-age drama historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc realistic social-commentary survival -
![Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada, Geoff Wilkes]()
Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada, Geoff Wilkes
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsInspired by a true story, Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin is the gripping tale of an ordinary man's determination to defy the tyranny of Nazi rule. This Penguin Classics edition contains an afterword by Geoff Wilkes, as well as facsimiles of the original Gestapo file which inspired the novel. Berlin, 1940, and the city is filled with fear... -
![The Arsonists' City by Hala Alyan]()
The Arsonists' City by Hala Alyan
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"Feels revolutionary in its freshness." --Entertainment Weekly"The Arsonists' City delivers all the pleasures of a good old-fashioned saga, but in Alyan's hands, one family's tale becomes the story of a nation--Lebanon and Syria, yes, but also the United States. It's the kind of book we are lucky to have... -
![Last of the Breed by Louis L'Amour]()
Last of the Breed by Louis L'Amour
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsHere is the kind of authentically detailed epic novel that has become Louis L’Amour’s hallmark. It is the compelling story of U.S. Air Force Major Joe Mack, a man born out of time. When his experimental aircraft is forced down in Russia and he escapes a Soviet prison camp, he must call upon the ancient skills of his Indian forebears to survive the vast Siberian wilderness...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc politics realistic survival suspense -
![Colombiano by Rusty Young]()
Colombiano by Rusty Young
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsBlending fact and fiction, Colombiano is a heart-thumping journey into the violent and unpredictable world of post-Escobar Colombia. For four years Rusty Young, author of the international bestseller Marching Powder, worked secretly for the US government in Colombia. During this time he was shocked by the stories of child soldiers he encountered...Categorized as:
coming-of-age crime historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc politics suspense war -
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![Tomorrow They Won't Dare to Murder Us by Joseph Andras]()
Tomorrow They Won't Dare to Murder Us by Joseph Andras
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWinner of the Prix Goncourt for first novel, one of the most prestigious literary awards in FranceA young revolutionary plants a bomb in a factory on the outskirts of Algiers during the Algerian War. The bomb is timed to explode after work hours, so no one will be hurt. But the authorities have been watching... -
![Dances with Wolves by Michael Blake]()
Dances with Wolves by Michael Blake
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsOrdered to hold an abandoned army post, John Dunbar found himself alone, beyond the edge of civilization. Thievery and survival soon forced him into the Indian camp, where he began a dangerous adventure that changed his life forever. Relive the adventure and beauty of the incredible movie, Dances with Wolves... -
![The Lion's Game by Nelson DeMille]()
The Lion's Game by Nelson DeMille
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsDetective John Corey, last seen in Plum Island, now faces his toughest assignment yet: the pursuit and capture of the world's most dangerous terrorist -- a young Arab known as "The Lion" who has baffled a federal task force and shows no sign of stopping in his quest for revenge against the American pilots who bombed Libya and killed his family... -
![Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy]()
Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 58 ratings"Allah!"With that shrill cry, three Muslim terrorists blow up a key Soviet oil complex, creating a critical oil shortage that threatens the stability of the USSR... -
![A Sparrow Falls by Wilbur Smith]()
A Sparrow Falls by Wilbur Smith
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA Sparrow Falls, another gripping installment in Wilbur Smith's Courtney Family Adventure seriesMark Anders grew up on eight thousand acres of African land that bore his family name. Then he fought in Europe's Great War and, upon returning to his ancestral home, he saw savagery unlike any other….In Africa, Mark's family estate has been despoiled... -
![Sooley by John Grisham]()
Sooley by John Grisham
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsNew York Times bestselling author John Grisham takes you to a different kind of court in his first basketball novel. Samuel "Sooley" Sooleymon is a raw, young talent with big hoop dreams...and even bigger challenges off the court...Categorized as:
coming-of-age crime drama historical-fiction literary-fiction realistic suspense war -
![Word of Honor by Nelson DeMille, Brian Murray]()
Word of Honor by Nelson DeMille, Brian Murray
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsHe is a good man, a brilliant corporate executive, an honest, handsome family man admired by men and desired by women. But a lifetime ago Ben Tyson was a lieutenant in Vietnam. There the men under his command committed a murderous atrocity--and together swore never to tell the world what they had done. Now the press, army justice, and the events he tried to forget have caught up with Ben Tyson... -
![When the Lion Feeds by Wilbur Smith]()
When the Lion Feeds by Wilbur Smith
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsPart of the 'Courtney' series 'Something always dies when the lion feeds and yet there is meat for those that follow him.' The lion is Sean, hero of this tremendous drama of the men who took possession of South Africa in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Sean and his twin-brother Garrick grew up on their father's farm in Natal... -
![The Great Swindle by Pierre Lemaitre]()
The Great Swindle by Pierre Lemaitre
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsOctober 1918: the war on the Western Front is all but over. Desperate for one last chance of promotion, the ambitious Lieutenant Henri d'Aulnay Pradelle sends two scouts over the top, and secretly shoots them in the back to incite his men to heroic action once more...Categorized as:
crime drama historical-fiction literary-fiction war 20th-century 21st-century action-adventure -
![Pereira Declares: A Testimony by Antonio Tabucchi]()
Pereira Declares: A Testimony by Antonio Tabucchi
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsDr. Pereira is an aging, overweightjournalist who has failed to noticethe menacing cloud of fascism overSalazarist Portugal, until one day hemeets an aspiring young writer andanti-fascist. Breaking out of his apolitical torpor, Pereira reluctantly rises to heroism... -
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![An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris]()
An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsRobert Harris returns to the thrilling historical fiction he has so brilliantly made his own. This is the story of the infamous Dreyfus affair told as a chillingly dark, hard-edged novel of conspiracy and espionage. Paris in 1895... -
![King Rat by James Clavell]()
King Rat by James Clavell
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsThe time is World War II. The place is a brutal prison camp deep in Japanese-occupied territory. Here, within the seething mass of humanity, one man, an American corporal, seeks dominance over both captives and captors alike... -
![The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth]()
The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsThe suicide of an elderly German Jew explodes into revelation after revelation: a Mafia-like organization called Odessa, a real-life fugitive known at the "Butcher of Riga", a young German journalist turned obsessed avenger...and ultimately, of a brilliant, ruthless plot to reestablish the worldwide power of SS mass murders and to carry out Hitler's chilling "Final Solution... -
![The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón]()
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 Young Lions by Irwin Shaw]()
The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Young Lions is a vivid and classic novel that portrays the experiences of ordinary soldiers fighting World War II. Told from the points of view of a perceptive young Nazi, a jaded American film producer, and a shy Jewish boy just married to the love of his life, Shaw conveys, as no other novelist has since, the scope, confusion, and complexity of war... -
![The Unwilling by John Hart]()
The Unwilling by John Hart
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSet in the South at the height of the Vietnam War, The Unwilling combines crime, suspense and searing glimpses into the human mind and soul in New York Times bestselling author John Hart's singular style. Gibby's older brothers have already been to war. One died there. The other came back misunderstood and hard, a decorated killer now freshly released from a three-year stint in prison... -
![The Sound Of Thunder by Wilbur Smith]()
The Sound Of Thunder by Wilbur Smith
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsTHE SOUND OF THUNDER continues the Courtney saga where WHEN THE LIONS FEEDS left off. Sean Courtney is off to fight the burghers in the Boer War -- first in harrowing missions on the front lines for the British Guides, then as the leader of commandos designed to fight the Boers on their own terms -- guerilla combat in the field... -
![The Woman with the Blue Star by Pam Jenoff, Sanna Majuri]()
The Woman with the Blue Star by Pam Jenoff, Sanna Majuri
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratings1942. Sadie Gault is eighteen and living with her parents amid the horrors of the Kraków Ghetto during World War II. When the Nazis liquidate the ghetto, Sadie and her pregnant mother are forced to seek refuge in the perilous sewers beneath the city. One day Sadie looks up through a grate and sees a girl about her own age buying flowers... -
![The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean]()
The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAn entire navy had tried to silence the guns of Navarone and failed. Full-scale attacks had been driven back. Now they were sending in just five men, each one a specialist in dealing death... -
![As the Crow Flies by Jeffrey Archer]()
As the Crow Flies by Jeffrey Archer
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsGrowing up in the slums of East End London, Charlie Trumper dreams of someday running his grandfather's fruit and vegetable barrow. That day comes suddenly when his grandfather dies leaving him the floundering business. With the help of Becky Salmon, an enterprising young woman, Charlie sets out to make a name for himself as "The Honest Trader"... -
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![Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer]()
Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsFrom the internationally bestselling author of Kane and Abel and A Prisoner of Birth comes Only Time Will Tell, the first in an ambitious new series that tells the story of one family across generations, across oceans, from heartbreak to triumph. The epic tale of Harry Clifton’s life begins in 1920, with the words “I was told that my father was killed in the war... -
![Qb VII by Leon Uris]()
Qb VII by Leon Uris
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsIn Queen’s Bench Courtroom Number Seven, famous author Abraham Cady stands trial. In his book The Holocaust—born of the terrible revelation that the Jadwiga Concentration Camp was the site of his family’s extermination—Cady shook the consciousness of the human race. He also named eminent surgeon Sir Adam Kelno as one of Jadwiga’s most sadistic inmate/doctors... -
![Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith]()
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsMGB officer Leo is a man who never questions the Party Line. He arrests whomever he is told to arrest. He dismisses the horrific death of a young boy because he is told to, because he believes the Party stance that there can be no murder in Communist Russia. Leo is the perfect soldier of the regime. But suddenly his confidence that everything he does serves a great good is shaken... -
![The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré]()
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsIn this classic, John le Carre's third novel and the first to earn him international acclaim, he created a world unlike any previously experienced in suspense fiction... -
![Star of the North by D.B. John, Linda Park]()
Star of the North by D.B. John, Linda Park
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsA propulsive and ambitious thriller about a woman trying to rescue her twin sister from captivity in North Korea, and the North Korean citizens with whom she forms an unlikely allianceStar of the North opens in 1998, when a Korean American teenager is kidnapped from a South Korean beach by North Korean operatives... -
![While Still We Live by Helen MacInnes]()
While Still We Live by Helen MacInnes
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsEnglish girl Sheila Matthews’ innocent holiday to Poland becomes a nightmare when the German Army invade in the summer of 1939. Working for the Polish underground as a double-agent, she plays a dangerous game, and is soon suspected by the Germans. Forced to flee to the forest and hunted by a ruthless German officer, she must rely on the dashing Captain Adam Wisniewski to help her home...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction politics suspense war thriller 20th-century action-adventure
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