Showing titles in 20th Century

The three sisters of Victory Walk in East London will face heartache and tears on the home front. A brand new series from the bestselling author of The District Nurses of Victory Walk Rose, Clover and Daisy are the pretty blond sisters of the Harrison family, living with their parents and two...

Jack Audley has been a highwayman. A soldier. And he has always been a rogue. What he is not, and never wanted to be, is a peer of the realm, responsible for an ancient heritage and the livelihood of hundreds. But when he is recognized as the long-lost son of the House of Wyndham, his carefree...

Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper, disappointed in love and - on the brink of 40 - living a limited existence with her truculent mother: a small life from which there is no likelihood of escape. When a young Swiss woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud. But the more Jean investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys.

Once upon a time, a little girl was found abandoned after a gruelling sea voyage from England to Australia. She carried nothing with her but a small suitcase of clothes, an exquisite volume of fairy tales and the memory of a mysterious woman called the Authoress, who promised to look after her but then vanished. Years later, Nell returns to England to uncover the truth about her identity. Her quest leads her to the strange and beautiful Blackhurst Manor on the Cornish coast, but its long-forgotten gardens hide secrets of their own.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Promise from the bestselling author Lesley Pearse. War threatens to take all she has loved and lived for . . . When Belle Reilly's husband Jimmy enlists and heads for the trenches of Northern France, she knows she cannot...

At the heart of Dover's Market Square lies the Castle's Café. A bustling, homely place run by the formidable Nellie Castle and her six children. Since the scandalous birth of her beloved son 10 years before, Marianne, Nellie's eldest daughter, has preferred to stay in the kitchen, hidden away from the town gossips. Overcome with shame, Marianne has never revealed the name of Donny's father - not even to her own mother. But with World War II just around the corner, Marianne's past catches up with her. And suddenly the lives of the Castle family become a lot more complicated.

Sing As We Go is a heart-rending wartime novel from the much-loved author of The Clippie Girls, Margaret Dickinson. Kathy Burton longs to escape the drudgery of her life as an unpaid labourer on her father's farm. With only the local church choir and the occasional dance at the village hall for...

Doctor Frances Brakespeare continues to settle into her new life in rural Somerset at Orchard Cottage Hospital, striving to improve the medical treatments on offer to the community. After successfully establishing a mother and baby clinic, Frances is determined to move with the times and add family planning advice to her roster – but are the residents of Norton Dene ready for such progress or will she face opposition?

Following the death of her mother, Becky begins the sad task of sorting through her empty flat. Starting with the letters piling up on the doormat, she finds an envelope post-marked from Cornwall. In it is a letter that will change her life forever. A desperate plea from her mother's elderly cousin, Olivia, to help save her beloved home. Becky arrives at Chynalls to find the beautiful old house crumbling into the ground and Olivia stuck in hospital with no hope of being discharged until her home is made habitable.

The Secret Sewing Society is a sweeping, heartbreaking tale about a devastating family mystery, a doomed love affair, and generations of women coming together against the odds. Fans of Evie Woods, Fiona Valpy and The Keeper of Happy Endings will be utterly swept away.

Glamorous debutantes, heartbreak and discovering just what is worth fighting for in the new historical novel from Sunday Times best seller Adele Parks. It's1914. Vivian, a young, impassioned debutante is hurried into a pedestrian marriage to cover a scandal. War breaks out on her wedding day - domestically and across Europe.

New Horizons for the Woolworths Girls is the emotional and hopeful finale to the beloved Woolworths Girls series by bestselling author Elaine Everest. There are fresh challenges and new beginnings on the horizon for the girls at Woolworths . . . When the Bexleyheath branch of F. W. Woolworths is...

In July 1940, Gwen Collingwood drops her husband at the railway station, knowing she may never see him again. Two days later, her humdrum world is torn apart when her sleepy English seaside town is subjected to the first of many heavy bombing attacks. In Ontario, Canada, Jim Armstrong is uncertain whether to volunteer for the army. When he uncovers the secret his fiance has been keeping from him his decision is clear. A few weeks later he is on a ship bound for England.

Fabulous family saga of secrets held through two generations, set against the atmospheric background of the Lake District at Christmas. The year 1936 is drawing to a close. Winter grips Wetmoreland and causes a rare phenonmenon: The lakes freeze. For two local families, the Richardsons and the Grindleys, this will bring unexpected upheaval, as the frozen lake entices long-estranged siblings and children to return home for the holiday season.

Kitty learned early on in her marriage that her husband, Bill Dunbar, isn’t reliable with money. So when they inherit the Dunbar family hotel at the start of the war, she's hopeful that their financial worries are over… until the bailiffs turn up! With Bill away fighting, it’s up to Kitty to turn things around for her family, or risk ruin. Lily worked as a chambermaid at Dunbar’s before the war. She met Daniel there, but their relationship was complicated by class differences and the disapproval of Daniel’s mother.

The Teashop Girls is a warm and moving tale of friendship and love in wartime, by the bestselling author of the Woolworths series, Elaine Everest. It is early 1940 and World War Two has already taken a hold on the country. Rose Neville works as a Lyon’s Teashop Nippy on the Kent coast...

1926. Running a theatre may appear to be all about the showbiz, but times are hard at The Empire. Following a turbulent period Jack Treadwell, erstwhile proprietor, his mother Lillian, and his playwright wife Grace, know they need to get things back on track - and how better than with the annual pantomime, a new venture, and an all-singing all-dancing talent contest, showcasing the best performers around.

1940. With the Germans about to enter Paris, Claire Bouchard flees France for England. Two years later she is recruited by the Special Operations Executive and sent back into occupied France to work alongside the Resistance. Working undercover as a teacher in Brittany, Claire accidentally befriends the wife of the German Commandant of Rennes, and the blossoming friendship is about to become a dangerous mission. Claire begins a double life as a Gestapo Commandant’s mistress to retrieve information, but ghosts from her past make the deception more painful than she could have imagined.

Will the war be over by Christmas? As the war moves into 1945 the lives of the women of Woolworths continue. When store manager, Betty Billington, announces she is expecting Douglas’s baby her future life is about to change more than she expects. Freda has fallen in love with the handsome...

It is 1925, and the war is long over. But much has been lost, and life will never be quite the same. Castle Deverill, cherished ancestral home to the Deverill family in the west of Ireland, has burned to the ground. Young and flighty Celia Deverill is determined to restore the sad ruins to its former glory. But dark shadows are gathering once more as the financial markets start to shake, and everything that felt so certain is thrown once again into doubt....