First published 2009
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain makes a fateful decision in 1938. He refuses to sign the Munich Accord. Hitler acts rashly, launching his war before Germany is ready. The conflict erupts across multiple fronts as unprepared nations scramble to respond. American marines fight in Japanese-occupied China while members of a proud German Jewish family confront their changing world. Volunteers battle in Spain's Abraham Lincoln Battalion. An American woman flees through Nazi territory, trapped inside the growing war machine. The early timing changes everything. Alliances shift in unexpected directions. Leaders and ordinary citizens face choices that will reshape the world. Turtledove follows dozens of characters as they navigate this altered timeline. Spies operate in shadows while soldiers clash on battlefields. Some find new bonds while others watch old loyalties crumble. The war that emerges looks nothing like the conflict history remembers. Each decision creates new consequences that ripple across continents. This is the story of how one man's impatience could have changed everything.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, war, alternate-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: alternate-timeline, historical-figures
Setting: Germany, China, Spain
Period: 1938
496 pages · Hardcover · Del Rey
Content warnings: war