Books like 'The Sweetness of Tears'

Readers who enjoyed The Sweetness of Tears by Nafisa Haji also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.

contemporary  war  south asian

  • The Storyteller's Secret by Sejal Badani

    The Storyteller's Secret by Sejal Badani

    Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars
    · 70 ratings
    From the bestselling author of Trail of Broken Wings comes an epic story of the unrelenting force of love, the power of healing, and the invincible desire to dream. Nothing prepares Jaya, a New York journalist, for the heartbreak of her third miscarriage and the slow unraveling of her marriage in its wake...
  • The Girl with the Diary by Shari J. Ryan

    The Girl with the Diary by Shari J. Ryan

    Rated: 4.52 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    “What if you never come back?” I asked.“I will find you, Amelia. I promise I will find you.”“What if you die trying?”Nazi-occupied Prague, 1942: Amelia is hiding in her closet when flashlights blind her and she’s captured by the SS. Out on the cobblestone street, she is shoved onto a freight train with hundreds of others. Hours pass as they travel in darkness...
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  • The Book of Fate by Parinoush Saniee

    The Book of Fate by Parinoush Saniee

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 36 ratings
    A bestselling novel in Iran, despite being banned twice by the government, The Book of Fate follows a teenage girl in pre-revolutionary Iran through five turbulent decades, from before the 1979 revolution, through the Islamic Republic, and up to the present in this powerful story of friendship, passion, and hope...
  • The Orphans of Berlin: The BRAND NEW heartbreaking World War 2 historical novel by Jina Bacarr for 2022 by Jina Bacarr

    The Orphans of Berlin: The BRAND NEW heartbreaking World War 2 historical novel by Jina Bacarr for 2022 by Jina Bacarr

    Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    'A moving novel of strength and resistance in the face of evil but also an inspiring journey of resilience after loss.' Erin Litteken, bestselling author of The Memory Keeper of KyivA heartbreaking World War 2 novel that tells the story of two women’s fight for love, family and hope, as the world crumbles around them...
  • The Oceans Between Us by Gill Thompson

    The Oceans Between Us by Gill Thompson

    Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars
    · 30 ratings
    Inspired by heartrending real events, a mother fights to find her son and a child battles for survival in this riveting debut novel.For readers of Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate, Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly, The Letter by Kathryn Hughes, and Remember Me by Lesley Pearse.A woman is found wandering injured in London after an air raid.She remembers nothing of who she is...
  • A Chance in a Million by T.A. Williams

    A Chance in a Million by T.A. Williams

    Rated: 4.54 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    Having left the army to recover from a traumatic experience, Captain Jane Reed is on her way to Venice to assist Lady Veronica Cooper , a world-famous writer who has lost her mojo. Plagued by grief and sleepless nights, Jane soon finds a kindred spirit in Veronica, coping with her own loss after the death of her husband...
  • Jessica by Bryce Courtenay

    Jessica by Bryce Courtenay

    Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
    · 37 ratings
    Jessica is based on the inspiring true story of a young girl's fight for justice against tremendous odds.A tomboy, Jessica is the pride of her father, as they work together on the struggling family farm. One quiet day, the peace of the bush is devastated by a terrible murder...
  • The Dressmaker's Gift by Fiona Valpy

    The Dressmaker's Gift by Fiona Valpy

    Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars
    · 55 ratings
    A Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Amazon Charts bestseller.From the bestselling author of The Beekeeper’s Promise comes a gripping story of three young women faced with impossible choices. How will history – and their families – judge them?Paris, 1940. With the city occupied by the Nazis, three young seamstresses go about their normal lives as best they can...
  • When We Meet Again by Dean Hughes

    When We Meet Again by Dean Hughes

    Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars
    · 31 ratings
    The Thomas family members face ongoing challenges in the dark years at the close of WW2. Alex's values are tested as he works to complete an intelligence assignment in Germany while wondering if he'll ever see his beloved Anna and their son again. Wally struggles to survive the torture he endures as a POW, and Bobbi has to make a difficult choice between the men in her life...
  • Rumors of War by Dean Hughes

    Rumors of War by Dean Hughes

    Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars
    · 35 ratings
    "Every era has its own refiner's fire, and World War II put general Church membership and Utah to a test," Dean Hughes explains. In Children of the Promise, his first historical fiction series for adults, Dean shows through the eyes of the Thomas family how LDS families were tested to the limit. "Most people agree it was a fascinating time in world and American history...
  • Champagne Widows: First Woman of Champagne, Veuve Clicquot by Rebecca Rosenberg

    Champagne Widows: First Woman of Champagne, Veuve Clicquot by Rebecca Rosenberg

    Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars
    · 23 ratings
    Champagne, France, 1800. Twenty-year-old Barbe-Nicole inherited Le Nez (an uncanny sense of smell) from her great-grandfather, a renowned champagne maker. She is determined to use Le Nez to make great champagne, but the Napoleon Code prohibits women from owning a business...
  • The Time in Between by María Dueñas, Carlos Romão

    The Time in Between by María Dueñas, Carlos Romão

    Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars
    · 45 ratings
    The Time In Between is a word-of-mouth phenomenon that catapulted María Dueñas, a debut author, to the top of Spain's bestseller lists.This sweeping novel, which combines the storytelling power of The Shadow of the Wind with the irresistible romance of Casablanca, moves at an unstoppable pace. Suddenly left abandoned and penniless in Morocco by her lover, Sira Quiroga forges a new identity...
  • Since You Went Away by Dean Hughes

    Since You Went Away by Dean Hughes

    Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars
    · 30 ratings
    Mom, when are you going to add two more stars to the banner in our window?" LaRue asked. "You obviously haven't looked. I sewed them on this morning." All around Salt Lake City-and across the nation — the banners were showing up now. Each star represented a member of the household who was serving in the military...
  • Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash

    Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash

    Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars
    · 48 ratings
    A sweeping, tenderhearted love the tale of two families living through the Second World War on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and the young woman who calls them both her ownAs German bombs fall over London in 1940, working-class parents Millie and Reginald Thompson make the impossible choice to send their eleven-year-old daughter, Beatrix, to America...
  • The Promise by Lesley Pearse

    The Promise by Lesley Pearse

    Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    London 1914 Belle Reilly finally has the life she's dreamed of thanks to a devoted husband in Jimmy and the hat shop she's wanted to own since she was a child. But as the storm clouds of World War One begin to gather, Belle's already turbulent life is to change in ways she never imagined possible...
  • The Last Night in London by Karen White

    The Last Night in London by Karen White

    Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars
    · 29 ratings
    New York Times bestselling author Karen White weaves a story of friendship past and present, love, and betrayal that moves between war-torn London during the Blitz and the present day. A captivating story of friendship, love and betrayal – and finding hope in the darkness of war.London, 1939...
  • The Good Doctor of Warsaw by Elisabeth Gifford

    The Good Doctor of Warsaw by Elisabeth Gifford

    Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    Set in the ghettos of wartime Warsaw, this is a sweeping, poignant and heartbreaking tale, based on the true story of one of World War II's quiet heroes - Dr Janusz Korczak.'You do not leave a sick child alone to face the dark and you do not leave a child at a time like this.'Deeply in love and about to marry, students Misha and Sophia flee a Warsaw under Nazi occupation for a chance at freedom...
  • Survivor by Lesley Pearse

    Survivor by Lesley Pearse

    Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars
    · 21 ratings
    Russell, 1938 It is 1938 and Mariette is a defiant, strong willed and selfish 17 yr old. The small, gossipy town of Russell, New Zealand isn’t nearly big enough for Mariette’s ambitions and her devoted parents, Belle and Etienne, fear for her reputation...
  • The House of Special Purpose by John Boyne

    The House of Special Purpose by John Boyne

    Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars
    · 36 ratings
    From the author of The Absolutist, a propulsive novel of the Russian Revolution and the fate of the Romanovs. Part love story, part historical epic, part tragedy, The House of Special Purpose illuminates an empire at the end of its reign. Eighty-year-old Georgy Jachmenev is haunted by his past—a past of death, suffering, and scandal that will stay with him until the end of his days...
  • The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

    The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

    Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars
    · Steam rating: 1 of 5
    Glimpses and kisses [?] · 83 ratings
    Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard...
  • Sophie's Choice by William Styron

    Sophie's Choice by William Styron

    Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars
    · 60 ratings
    Three stories are told: a young Southerner wants to become a writer; a turbulent love-hate affair between a brilliant Jew and a beautiful Polish woman; and of an awful wound in that woman's past--one that impels both Sophie and Nathan toward destruction...
    Categorized as:
    war  contemporary  mystery  length-long  audiobook
  • The Memory of Us by Camille Di Maio

    The Memory of Us by Camille Di Maio

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 30 ratings
    Julianne Westcott was living the kind of life that other Protestant girls in prewar Liverpool could only dream about: old money, silk ball gowns, and prominent young men lining up to escort her. But when she learns of a blind-and-deaf brother, institutionalized since birth, the illusion of her perfect life and family shatters around her...
  • The Fortunate Ones by Catherine Hokin

    The Fortunate Ones by Catherine Hokin

    Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars
    · 27 ratings
    Every day he stood exactly where he was directed. He listened for his number, shouted his answer in the freezing cold. He was ragged and he was starving, but he was alive. He was one of the fortunate ones whom fate had left standing. And he needed to stay that way. For Hannah. Berlin, 1941. Felix Thalberg, a printer’s apprentice, has the weight of the world on his shoulders...
  • A Sparrow in Terezin by Kristy Cambron

    A Sparrow in Terezin by Kristy Cambron

    Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars
    · 21 ratings
    Two women, one in the present day and one in 1942, each hope for a brighter future. But they'll both have to battle through their darkest days to reach it. "Today. "With the grand opening of her new gallery and a fairytale wedding months away, Sera James appears to have a charmed life...
  • Lights Out Liverpool by Maureen Lee

    Lights Out Liverpool by Maureen Lee

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 14 ratings
    As Britain stands alone against a monstrous enemy, the inhabitants of Pearl Street face hardship and heartbreak with courage and humour...
  • Through The Storm by Maureen Lee

    Through The Storm by Maureen Lee

    Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars
    · 13 ratings
    Two years of war have taken a terrible toll on Pearl Street, Liverpool. German bombs have reduced some houses to rubble and most of the inhabitants have lost friends and family. While sisters Eileen and Sheila share the anxious burden of absent husbands, the conflict for others brings excitement and freedom...
  • Gruppenführer's Mistress by Ellie Midwood

    Gruppenführer's Mistress by Ellie Midwood

    Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars
    · 13 ratings
    "Gruppenführer’s Mistress" is book two in the series “The Girl from Berlin,” which continues to follow Annalise’s story...
  • Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières

    Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières

    Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars
    · 32 ratings
    In his first novel since Corelli’s Mandolin , Louis de Bernières creates a world, populates it with characters as real as our best friends, and launches it into the maelstrom of twentieth-century history. The setting is a small village in southwestern Anatolia in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. Everyone there speaks Turkish, though they write it in Greek letters...
    Categorized as:
    war  contemporary  length-long  audiobook
  • The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer, Arthur Morey

    The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer, Arthur Morey

    Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars
    · 45 ratings
    A grand love story and an epic tale of three brothers whose lives are torn apart by war. Paris, 1937. Andras Lévi, a Hungarian Jewish architecture student, arrives from Budapest with a scholarship, a single suitcase, and a mysterious letter he has promised to deliver to C. Morgenstern on the rue de Sévigné...
    Categorized as:
    war  contemporary  military  length-epic  audiobook
  • Never Meant to Stay by Trisha Das

    Never Meant to Stay by Trisha Das

    Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars
    · 27 ratings
    A bighearted romantic comedy about family and finding the perfect match set against the exuberant backdrop of contemporary Delhi. Home has always been a temporary arrangement for Samara Mansingh, a wayfaring wedding photographer and the daughter of a diplomat. When her father is uprooted once again, Samara needs a place to stay in Delhi. Next the Khanna family...
  • Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum

    Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum

    Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars
    · 59 ratings
    For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer has refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was only three when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldier and went to live with him in Minnesota. Trudy's sole evidence of the past is an old photograph: a family portrait showing Anna, Trudy, and a Nazi officer, the Obersturmfuhrer of Buchenwald...
    Categorized as:
    war  contemporary  length-long  audiobook
  • The Road Home by Ellen Emerson White

    The Road Home by Ellen Emerson White

    Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars
    · 8 ratings
    Rebecca Phillips, 22, is a nurse in Vietnam who has seen endless bloodshed, horror, and suffering. When her helicopter crashes in the jungle, she faces a brutal showdown for survival that will change her forever. Named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults...
    Categorized as:
    war  contemporary  length-long
  • Of Windmills and War by Diane Moody

    Of Windmills and War by Diane Moody

    Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars
    · 21 ratings
    The rumblings of war in distant countries mattered little to Danny McClain. Growing up in Chicago, his world revolved around after-school jobs, a rescued beagle, his pen pal in Holland, and the Cubs’ chance to go to the World Series. Then, in December of 1941, during his first year at Northwestern University, news of the attack on Pearl Harbor hit much too close to home...
  • I'll Be Seeing You by Suzanne Hayes, Loretta Nyhan

    I'll Be Seeing You by Suzanne Hayes, Loretta Nyhan

    Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars
    · 28 ratings
    "I hope this letter gets to you quickly. We are always waiting, aren't we? Perhaps the greatest gift this war has given us is the anticipation..." It's January 1943 when Rita Vincenzo receives her first letter from Glory Whitehall. Glory is an effervescent young mother, impulsive and free as a bird. Rita is a sensible professor's wife with a love of gardening and a generous, old soul...
    Categorized as:
    war  contemporary  length-medium  audiobook
  • The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman

    The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman

    Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars
    · 46 ratings
    A rapturous novel of first love in a time of war-from the celebrated author of The Rhythm of Memory and The Last Van Gogh. In pre-war Prague, the dreams of two young lovers are shattered when they are separated by the Nazi invasion. Then, decades later, thousands of miles away in New York, there's an inescapable glance of recognition between two strangers..
    Categorized as:
    war  contemporary  length-medium  audiobook
  • Bluebird by Genevieve Graham

    Bluebird by Genevieve Graham

    Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars
    · 11 ratings
    A dazzling novel set during the Great War and postwar Prohibition about a young nurse, a soldier, and a family secret that binds them together for generations to come—from USA TODAY and repeat #1 bestselling author Genevieve Graham...
  • A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

    A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

    Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars
    · 41 ratings
    Vikram Seth's novel is, at its core, a love story: Lata and her mother, Mrs. Rupa Mehra, are both trying to find -- through love or through exacting maternal appraisal -- a suitable boy for Lata to marry...
  • Tell Me How to Be by Neel Patel

    Tell Me How to Be by Neel Patel

    Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars
    · 17 ratings
    'A love letter to R&B, youth, and the unforgettable agonies of one's first love...I will read everything Patel writes from here on.' Susie Yang, New York Times bestselling author of White IvyLost in the jungle of Los Angeles, Akash Amin is filled with shame. Shame for liking men. Shame for wanting to be a songwriter. Shame for not being like his perfect brother. Shame for his alcoholism...
  • The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers by Harry Bernstein

    The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers by Harry Bernstein

    Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars
    · 37 ratings
    “There are places that I have never forgotten. A little cobbled street in a smoky mill town in the North of England has haunted me for the greater part of my life. It was inevitable that I should write about it and the people who lived on both sides of its ‘Invisible Wall.’ ” The narrow street where Harry Bernstein grew up, in a small English mill town, was seemingly unremarkable...
    Categorized as:
    war  contemporary  length-medium  audiobook
  • The Last Queen of India by Michelle Moran

    The Last Queen of India by Michelle Moran

    Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars
    · 37 ratings
    1857, India. At nineteen years old, Sita is the shining star of Queen Lakshmi of India's imperial guard, having pledged herself to a life of celibacy in the name of protecting the young ruler. When Sita agrees to train Lakshmi in the art of military combat, a close friendship develops between the two women...
  • No Honour by Awais Khan

    No Honour by Awais Khan

    Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars
    · 11 ratings
    A young woman defies convention in a small Pakistani village, with devastating results for her and her family. A stunning, immense beautiful novel about courage, family and the meaning of love, when everything seems lost… In sixteen-year-old Abida’s small Pakistani village, there are age-old rules to live by, and her family’s honour to protect...
  • Universe of Two by Stephen P. Kiernan

    Universe of Two by Stephen P. Kiernan

    Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars
    · 24 ratings
    From the critically acclaimed author of The Baker’s Secret and The Curiosity comes a novel of conscience, love, and redemption—a fascinating fictionalized account of the life of Charlie Fisk, a gifted mathematician who was drafted into Manhattan Project and ordered against his morals to build the detonator for the atomic bomb...
  • Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet by Xinran, Julia Lovell

    Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet by Xinran, Julia Lovell

    Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars
    · 28 ratings
    It was 1994 when Xinran, a journalist and the author of The Good Women of China, received a telephone call asking her to travel four hours to meet an oddly dressed woman who had just crossed the border from Tibet into China. Xinran made the trip and met the woman, called Shu Wen, who recounted the story of her thirty-year odyssey in the vast landscape of Tibet...
    Categorized as:
    war  contemporary  length-short
  • If I Return (The 12 NA's of Christmas) by Sawyer Bennett

    If I Return (The 12 NA's of Christmas) by Sawyer Bennett

    Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars
    · 16 ratings
    If I Return is proud to be a part of The 12 NA's of Christmas 12 New Adult Novellas. 12 Best Selling Authors. November 2013. Would you wait? College student, Hope Camden, is relentlessly serious, awkwardly shy and in complete need of taking a walk on the wilder side...
  • War Criminal's Widow by Ellie Midwood

    War Criminal's Widow by Ellie Midwood

    Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars
    · 15 ratings
    "War Criminal's Widow" is the third book in the series "The Girl from Berlin." As soon as Annalise, a counterintelligence agent working for the American OSS office, thinks that all the dangers are finally behind, swept away by the protective hand of her high-ranking lover – the Chief of the RSHA Ernst Kaltenbrunner – she has to face an even bigger challenge...
  • 바다 사이 등대 by M.L. Stedman

    바다 사이 등대 by M.L. Stedman

    Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars
    · 75 ratings
    After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel...
  • Independence by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

    Independence by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

    Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars
    · 31 ratings
    Set during the partition of British India in 1947, a time when neighbor was pitted against neighbor and families were torn apart, award-winning author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's novel brings to life the sweeping story of three sisters caught up in events beyond their control, their unbreakable bond, and their incredible struggle against powerful odds.India, 1947...
  • The Long Flight Home by Alan Hlad

    The Long Flight Home by Alan Hlad

    Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars
    · 11 ratings
    Inspired by fascinating, true, yet little-known events during World War II, The Long Flight Home is a testament to the power of courage in our darkest hours—a moving, masterfully written story of love and sacrifice. It is September 1940—a year into the war—and as German bombs fall on Britain, fears grow of an impending invasion...
  • What the Light Touches by Xavier Bosch, Samantha Mateo

    What the Light Touches by Xavier Bosch, Samantha Mateo

    Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars
    · 23 ratings
    Acclaimed author Xavier Bosch weaves an emotional tale of love and intrigue in this novel about a woman on the cusp of middle age, her beloved grandma, and a strange houseguest who changes everything.Seventeen-year-old Margaux doesn’t realize one photo could change the course of her life. But in German-occupied Paris of 1940, nothing makes sense anymore...
  • The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama

    The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama

    Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars
    · 37 ratings
    A 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen is sent to his family's summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu's secret and gains not only physical strength, but also profound spiritual insight...
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