Inspired by the experiences of his grandfather J. R. R. Tolkien during World War I, Simon Tolkien delivers a perfectly rendered novel rife with class tension, period detail, and stirring action. No Man’s Land follows Adam Raine through his impoverished childhood, falling in love, and the outbreak of war that threatens to tear everything apart.

Also steeped in early 20th-century history, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles features wealthy Count Alexander Rostov, who has been sentenced to house arrest in a Moscow hotel as punishment for writing a poem deemed incendiary by the Bolsheviks. But despite his confinement, the count lives an adventurous life.