Showing titles in 20th Century

From the best-selling 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. But all three are hiding secrets. War-scarred Mireille is fighting with the Resistance; Claire has been seduced by a German officer; and Vivienne’s involvement is something she can’t reveal to either of them.

Farm girl Veronica McDermott is desperate to find more to life than peeling potatoes. Persuading her family to let her attend college in Dublin, she has no idea what she is getting into. Recruited to type for Eámon De Valera, she is soon caught up in the danger of those fighting for Ireland's independence from Britain. The attentions of a handsome British soldier do not go unnoticed by Veronica's superiors. But when she is tasked with earning his affections to gather intelligence for Sinn Féin, it isn't long before her loyalty to her countrymen and her feelings are in conflict.

In 1895, a Northumbrian island welcomes two new residents. Clara and Jimmy are born on the same night, to families poles apart. Clara is an islander through and through; content to live among the rhythms and barren beauty of Holy Island. Jimmy's future is set in stone; fishing with the father he despises on the family boat. When tragedy forces them from their island and each other, they join the herring season in a bid to survive. Jimmy strikes out for Seahouses, where he joins a Scots herring crew.

As war rages and brave soldiers returning home from the frontline need nurses more than ever, fiercely proud redhead Sylvia Roberts is determined to help in any way she can. In spite of her mother’s belief she isn’t good enough, Sylvia believes that becoming a home front nurse is her calling. Together with the two friends she makes on her first day in the job – Freda and Veronica – she knows she can help save lives. And, as the devastation of war shows no signs of ceasing, their work becomes ever more vital.

Having done her duty as an ATS girl, Lance Corporal Ruth Cox is moving on to new challenges and has signed up to work as a gunner girl, helping to keep the skies clear of enemy planes and safe for our brave boys in blue. But on the way to her new barracks, Ruth meets handsome Sargeant Sam Johnson. Ruth isn’t looking for romance, and she knows she has a dangerous job ahead, but there is a connection between her and Sam that she can’t deny.

Welcome to England, 1809. London is a violent, intolerant city, exhausted by years of war, beset by soaring prices and political tensions. By day, John Church preaches on the radical possibilities of love to a multicultural, working-class congregation in Southwark. But by night, he crosses the river to the secret and glamorous world of a gay molly house on Vere Street, where ordinary men reinvent themselves as funny, flirtatious drag queens and rent boys cavort with labourers and princes alike. There, Church becomes the first minister to offer marriages between men, at enormous risk.

As Jane looks after little Jonny whilst Eddie is away for work, she begins to fall for his cheeky smile and sweet nature, but when she sees old photographs of Jonny and his mother, she realizes something is terribly wrong. Jane is sure that Jonny’s mother was hiding a terrible secret. Jane now faces a devastating choice: should she hide the truth forever or reveal what she knows and risk losing her beloved son....

Wild-spirited Effie Gillies has lived all her life on the small island of St Kilda but when Lord Sholto, heir to the Earl of Dumfries, visits, the attraction between them is instant. For one glorious week she guides the handsome young visitor around the isle, falling in love for the first time—until a storm hits and her world falls apart. Three months later, St Kilda falls silent as the islanders are evacuated for a better life on the mainland. With her friends and family scattered, Effie is surprised to be offered a position working on the Earl’s estate.

1838: when a terrible storm blows up off the Northumberland coast, Grace Darling, the lighthouse keeper’s daughter, knows there is little chance of survival for the passengers on the small ship battling the waves. But her actions set in motion an incredible feat of bravery that echoes down the century. 1938: when 19-year-old Matilda Emmerson sails from across the Atlantic to New England, she faces an uncertain future. Sent away in disgrace, she must stay with her reclusive relative, Harriet Flaherty, a lighthouse keeper on Rhode Island.

Scotland, 1943. It’s a long hot summer in Scotland but the Women’s Timber Corps have more than forest fires to worry about. As the summer beats on, can the Lumberjills pull together and protect the forest – and each other?

A pact is sealed in secret behind the foreboding walls of Newgate Prison. In return for one night of unparalleled pleasure, a dashing condemned criminal consents to wed a beautiful heiress, thereby rescuing her from an impending and abhorred arranged union. But in the fading echoes of hollow wedding vows, a solemn promise is broken, as a sensuous free spirit takes flight to a lush Caribbean paradise, abandoning the stranger she married to face the gallows unfulfilled.

France, 1943. Forced to flee war ravaged Poland, Sara and her parents are offered refuge in a beautiful but dilapidated house in the French Alps. It seems the perfect hideaway, despite haunting traces of the previous occupants who left in haste. But shadows soon fall over Sara's blissful summer and her blossoming romance with local villager Alain. As the Nazis close in, the family is forced to make a harrowing choice that could drive them apart forever, while Sara's own bid for freedom risks several lives.

Jack Barlow has a dream. For generations his family have been in service at Trenwith Estate. If he can survive the ravages of war, he’ll return home to build his own mechanic business and become master of his own destiny. Louise Saint-Claire is battling against the odds to run her family farmhouse in German occupied France after her abusive husband is taken prisoner by the Germans. She is determined to survive this brutal and bloody war. But fate throws Jack and Louise together when she finds the wounded British soldier and she decides to risk everything to keep him safe

In 1960s Marrakech a young girl travels to meet her estranged grandmother. Vicky Baudin steps on to the train through Morocco looking for the truth about the woman who gave her father up for adoption decades before. Clemence Petier lives in a kasbah on the edge of the Atlas Mountains, her background shrouded in mystery. But the past holds secrets that threaten them both. A face from Clemence’s childhood threatens to expose everything she has built a life to hide.

Charlotte Brookes flees her lecherous guardian McBride, taking her younger sister with her. After a year on the road, they stumble into a Yorkshire village where the Wheelers, owners of the village shop, take them in. This new life is strange for Charlotte, but preferable to living with McBride or surviving on the roads.

The aroma of chocolate was as familiar to Molly Freeman as the nose on her face. Living and schooling on Haxby Road alongside the Rowntrees Chocolate Factory, Molly watched the daily trudge of women employed there in their white uniforms as she sat at her school desk. When Molly secures a job on the production line at the factory, she's excited to become one of these women. As she labours hard at the factory, she meets Connie. Quickly the two form a close friendship, and Molly begins to see the world differently.

The phony war is over and Hitler is beginning his rampage through Europe. But back home Barbara Sinclair has troubles of her own. With her wedding to Spitfire Pilot Alex Everton imminent, Barbara is worried about a secret she is keeping from her new husband – one that could ruin everything. Determined to try and maintain some normality in her life, the wedding goes ahead, but Alex leaves almost immediately to continue fighting the Germans. Barbara fears for his safety and for the moment, her secret must wait. But when bombs fall on Barbara’s new home, the war feels closer than ever.

September 1939. London is in blackout; war has been declared, but Dulcie Treadwell can think only of American broadcaster, Glenn Reeves, who didn’t say goodbye before leaving for Berlin. Heartbroken, Dulcie is posted to Bletchley Park, where she must concentrate instead on cracking the German Enigma codes. The hours are long and the conditions tough, with little recognition from above. Until she breaks her first code. But when a spiteful act of jealousy leads to Dulcie’s brutal dismissal, her life is left in pieces once more.

When life throws Molly Butterfield a curveball, she decides to spend some time with her recently widowed granddad, Wally, at Hawthorn Place, his quirky Victorian house on the Dorset coast. But cosseted Molly struggles to look after herself, never mind her grieving granddad, until the accidental discovery of an identical Arts and Crafts house on the Norfolk coast offers her an unexpected purpose, as well as revealing a bewildering mystery.

It’s December 1902, and Rose O’Leary is looking forward to her baby girl’s first Christmas. But then tragedy strikes: her husband dies at the shipyard where he works, and within days his friend Nathaniel makes it plain he’s determined to have her. Rose flees with her child but soon finds the world is a cruel place for a beautiful woman with no protection. More tragedy ensues, and yet, although she’s bruised and broken, Rose is a fighter.