The Tenth Muse by Catherine Chung.

I loved this – fiction about a very clever young woman with a real gift for mathematics trying to make her way in the world both personally and academically – being half Asian and half European, and a woman to boot, she was never quite sure of where she fitted in. Has familial links back to the second world war and is a really lovely story. If you love maths you would love this book. I don’t, and I still did. 

Chanel’s Riviera by Anne de Courcy.

One of those gorgeous, gossipy, glamorous fun books about the good life amongst the beautiful people.  They all had a lot of fun on the Cote d’Azur in the late 30’s while the world was edging closer to war but they were oblivious. Lots of famous names -  like the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Somerset Maugham, Gloria Swanson, Joe Kennedy, Nabokov, Colette, and Winston Churchill himself. Then, in a matter of months, the Nazis swooped down and the party was over.