Strangers in Time: A World War II Novel (2025) is excellent historical fiction.

I’m surprised as Baldacci is mainly know for best selling suspense novels and legal thrillers that you immediately forget once getting to the last page.

But his 2025 book is serious literature. This could be nominated for major awards.

… set in London in 1944, about a bereaved bookshop owner and two teenagers scarred by the Second World War, and the healing and hope they find in one another. 

Fourteen-year-old Charlie Matters is up to no good, but for a very good reason. Without parents, peerage, or merit, he steals what he needs, living day-to-day until he’s old enough to enlist to fight the Germans. After barely surviving the Blitz, Charlie knows there’s no telling when a falling bomb might end his life. 

Fifteen-year-old Molly Wakefield has just returned to a nearly unrecognizable London. One of millions of children to have been evacuated to the countryside Molly has been away from her home for nearly five years. Her return, however, is not the homecoming she’d hoped for as she’s confronted by a devastating reality: neither of her parents are there. 

Without guardians and stability, Charlie and Molly find an unexpected ally and protector in Ignatius Oliver, and solace at his bookshop …

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