Showing titles in 20th Century

Brought to you by Penguin. London, 1939 When tragedy strikes, Libby Andrews is left homeless and destitute, fending for herself on the capital's most dangerous streets. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Libby is on the cusp of making a decision that could jeopardise her future...

The gripping sequel to A Woman of Substance (now a major new tv series) and Hold The Dream. Set in Yorkshire, Hong Kong and America, this remarkable novel continues the story of an unorthodox and endlessly fascinating family. As the spirit of Emma Harte lives on in her granddaughter, Paula...

Susanna Weber is the best dress maker in Imperial Vienna. Through skill and hard work, she now owns her own dress shop, looking out over the beautiful Madensky Square. To do so, she has left her past behind, if not without regret, at least resolutely. Looking around her, at her customers and friends, Susanna is aware that she has more than most - but a few small changes cause her to realize just how precarious her situation is.

Brought to you by Penguin. The heartwarming and moving story of three fascinating women finding their strength in World War II, perfect for fans of Katie Flynn, Call the Midwife and Downton Abbey It is June 1940, and as the bombs fall, the women at home must dig deep . . . Tucked on the edge of...

In this emotional novel based on Greece's real history we follow three generations of one family, broken apart by secrets and war, as Olivia travels to the island of her mother's birth to piece together a century's worth of her family's past. On the Greek island of Castellorizo young Sofía must...

Sweeping from the early 1920s through to the end of World War II, Sons and Daughters by Margaret Dickinson is a compelling, traditional saga set against the Lincolnshire landscape that Margaret Dickinson portrays so well. Charlotte is an only child, reared by a brutal father who cannot forgive...

‘This will sweep you away for the summer. Lucy Foley blends a rich history, haunting secrets and a timeless love story’ Santa Montefiore, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Deverill series 1921 Each day Nur gazes across the waters of the Bosphorus to her childhood home, a grand white...

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.

Wiltshire, December 1915. Widow Olivia Hanbury is persuaded by her cousin Donald to move in with his meek little wife while he is serving in France. When he's wounded and returns home to convalesce, tensions immediately rise between him and lively Olivia. But things begin to look up when Olivia becomes involved in starting the new Women's Institutes and is introduced to Alex, an antiques dealer. Meanwhile, Phoebe Latimer is holding the fort at Greyladies, an ancient manor house, while her husband is away at war. But someone is attempting to rid Greyladies of the German internees based there.

Told with exceptional grace and read beatifully by Indira Varma, The Light Years is a modern classic of twentieth-century English life and is the first novel in Elizabeth Jane Howard’s extraordinary, bestselling family saga, The Cazalet Chronicles. 'Compelling, moving, unputdownable...

London, East End, 1941: When everything is lost, can love rebuild a family? With the Blitz blazing through London and sirens wailing through the night, district nurse Sarah Rhodes tends the injured and comforts the frightened, determined to endure this terrible war. But when her own home is destroyed, she is forced to leave London and seek refuge at Harbour House. There, more devastating bad news awaits. Her beloved husband Stan, a brave RAF pilot flying dangerous bombing raids, is reported missing in action when his plane fails to return. Sarah's world shatters.

The Second World War has finally ended and so begins a new era of freedom and opportunity for the Cazalet family in Casting Off, the fourth novel in Elizabeth Jane Howard's magnificent Cazalet Chronicles. Read by Indira Varma (Game of Thrones, Luther and Oedipus at The Old Vic). ‘Somehow, she...

The bestselling stirring story of love and hope, based on the incredible true story of Australia's first Japanese war bride and a love that changed a nation forever. SHORTLISTED FOR 2023 DYMOCKS BOOK OF THE YEAR AND THE 2024 ABIA MATT RICHELL AWARD FOR NEW WRITERS. LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 INDIE...

For Josie Flynn, the war was just the start of a journey that began in heartbreak when she was sent to live with her aunt and uncle. But the dark shadow that her uncle cast over her life is lightened by the bubbly Lily, who lives along the street and becomes her life-long friend. But Josie has itchy feet, and it is in New York that she falls in love with Jack Coltrane.

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...

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER 'A wonderful book, a wonderful read' Karen Joy Fowler, bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club Only a few months after the end of the Second World War, a new battle is beginning in the little village of Chawton. Once the final home of Jane Austen, the Chawton...

1968 New York City News about the war might be keeping Patrick up at night—news in general might be keeping Patrick up at night—but he's doing fine. He's sure of it. He gets to spend his days selling books in the gayest neighborhood on the East Coast and his nights merrily sleeping his way...

The Pratchett family have to contend with coalman Alfie Pratchett's obsessive jealousy. A bully, his two teenage children, John and Millie, have learned to dodge him and his moods. The main concern of ugly duckling Millie - who looks nothing like her handsome brother John - is to protect their mum, Eileen. When crisis strikes the Pratchetts' home, Alfie is forced to watch his whole world gradually collapse around him. Their old life has gone forever, and a new one has begun - one in which rape, debt, alcoholism and insanity play their parts. And redemption is a long time coming.

Occupied France, 1940. When the staff at a field hospital draw straws to find out who will join the evacuation from Dunkirk, Nurse Cate is left behind. But when the Nazis arrive to claim prisoners of war, she takes her chance and flees into the night, taking one patient with her. Fifty miles away, the surrendering soldiers of the Royal Norfolk Regiment are shot dead by the advancing Germans. Beneath the pile of bodies two men survive, crawling to the safety of a nearby farmhouse, where sisters Elise and Adelaide risk their lives to take them in.

Queenie Brogan wasn't always an East End matriarch. Many years ago, before she married Fergus, she was Philomena Dooley, a daughter of Irish Travellers, planning to wed her childhood sweetheart, Patrick. But when tragedy struck and his narrow-minded sister, Nora, intervened, the lovers were torn apart. Fate can be cruel, and when Queenie arrives in London she finds that Patrick Mahon is her parish priest, and that the love she had tried to suppress flares again in her heart. But now in the final months of WW2, Queenie discovers Father Mahon is dying and must face losing him forever.