Showing results by narrator "Annie Aldington" in All Categories

In the haunting era of the Second World War, Mary Wood’s stirring saga, Brighter Days Ahead, follows the journey of two courageous women, Molly and Flo, who brave the storms of life and war. Molly, hardened by the streets of London's rough East End, is kidnapped by a gang and forced into their...

The female private detective has been a staple of popular culture for over 150 years. But what about the real-life women behind these fictional tales? Dismissed as 'Mrs Sherlock Holmes' or amateurish Miss Marples, mocked as private dicks or honey trappers, they have been investigating crime since the mid-nineteenth century - everything from theft and fraud to romance scams and murder. In Private Inquiries, Caitlin Davies traces the history of the UK's female investigators.

Growing up in a small seaside town, Marcie Brooks dreams of owning a Mary Quant mini-skirt, the Beatles, and escape. Instead she's stuck in a dead-end job selling candy floss to tourists and with a crazy family. Her grandmother sees ghosts, her step-mother is unable to control her growing family...

Aggie has tasted freedom working at the local munitions factory. But the Great War is coming to an end, and the men are coming home. Aggie can't bear the idea of going back into service. She wants more from her life - and becoming a Copperette - a member of the Women's Police Service - might help her move up in the world. Mim just wants to do her bit for her country. She's prepared to work hard to help her fellow women and keep up morale. She even takes Aggie in to her house to help with her training.   

Every heart holds a secret... But some secrets are better left buried. When seventeen-year old Phoebe Turner visits Wilton's Music Hall to watch her Aunt Cissy performing on stage, she risks the wrath of her mother Maud who marches with the Hallelujah Army, campaigning for all London theatres to...

Brought to you by Penguin. THE SECOND NOVEL IN THE GRIPPING SMUGGLER'S DAUGHTERS TRILOGY! Perfect for fans of Dilly Court and Poldark. Deal, Kent, 1812 Eighteen-year-old Winnie Lennicker yearns for a peaceful life as a respectable married woman. However, when she becomes involved in her family's...

Rowan Forrester has it all - the happy marriage, the adorable dog, the good friends, the promising business and even the dream home after she and her husband, Tom, win a stunning but slightly dilapidated Georgian townhouse in London at auction. But in the blink of an eye, Rowan’s picture-perfect life comes crashing down around her, and she is faced with the prospect of having to start again. To make ends meet she begins a search for housemates and, in doing so, opens the door to new friends and new beginnings. But could she be opening the door to new heartbreak, too?

The ravaged world of Tallarn now plays host to the greatest armoured conflict in the history of mankind, with the bitter and vengeful Iron Warriors leading warhosts of tanks and Titans across the befouled plains. In desperation, a covert team of Imperial Fists resort to seemingly unthinkable measures in order to regain the upper hand - but will their mission to seize the macro-transporter Eagle's Talon ensure victory or merely spell doom for their loyal allies on the surface below?

It is 1938, and the threat of war looms on the streets of London. But when the lights go down in the cinema aisles, usherette Daisy Blake is transported to a world of glamour and romance. Among the staff there is much merriment, and Daisy soon falls in love with the handsome organist, Al Dawson. Then war is declared, and, just after Al leaves for the front line, Daisy discovers she's pregnant.

East London, 1938. Nine-year-old Daisy Purbright is a country girl at heart, and together with beloved brother Bobby, they've enjoyed the endless freedoms of rural England. But when her father gambles the family's fortunes on a speculative investment in London's docklands, Daisy and her family are swept up into the intrigue, danger and excitement. The Purbrights desperately attempt to settle to a new life in the East End, but the whisperings of war grow louder. Then Adolf Hitler conducts a paralysing bombardment on London, and war tightens its grip.

Crime is a man's business, so they say, though not according to Queenie Dove. A self-proclaimed genius when it comes to thieving and escape, she reckons she's done pretty well. Yes, she had a tough childhood in London's East End. But she survived the Blitz, learned how to get by on her wits, and soon graduated from shoplifting to more glamorous crimes. Daring, clever and sexy, she thrived in the Soho of the Krays and the clubs of Mayfair, fell wildly in love, and got away with it all. Or did she? For beneath Queenie's vivacious, unrepentant account lies another story....

Lettice Pegg's father is a working-class policeman and her mother is a middle-class suffragette. Stuck between them as they argue, Lettice mostly cares about trying to fit in at school and convincing her parents to let her have roller skates and go to the music hall. But, when Lettice sees her mother brutally thrown to the ground by a policeman while on a protest march, her life changes forever. Not all of the women on the march are vulnerable to attack. Some of them have a secret weapon: jiu jitsu.

Verity Templeton, 18 and fiercely independent, travels to London with her aunt for the season. During a weekend with her friend Charlotte Huntington-Smythe an encounter with Charlotte's brother shows her another side of the family. Then she meets Brandon Summerville, the handsome, arrogant, wealthy man about town Charlotte is in love with. Will she be able to resist his obvious charm? When a secret from the past turns her life upside down she doubts everything she's believed in. Her fight to find the truth brings more heartache.

Their country needed themIn the summer of 1942, Lorna Washbourne must say goodbye to her beloved home in the peaceful East Anglian countryside, which is about to be demolished to make way for the US Eighth Army Air Force and its new airfield.War brings with it great change and Lorna and her friends find themselves called up to serve. Violetta is in the army while Megan and Bunty are sent to London: Megan, in the American Red Cross; Bunty, a clippie on the London buses.

It’s Christmas 1880 in London’s East End, and a dying Irish girl leaves her baby in the care of the Sisters of Clemency. The nuns raise little Ettie O’Reilly as their own. But the lives of the nuns and orphans are soon crushed by an unexpected turn of events. Ettie is at her lowest ebb when she is betrayed by the boy who has promised his undying love and loyalty. She is faced with the revelation of a heart-wrenching secret.

Sent to the workhouse as a child, all Ella Hathaway can remember is a voice whispering, 'Dearie, promise you will never forget what you saw. Your Ma was killed deliberate...and someone oughter pay for it.' When wealthy spinster Letitia Fairchild witnesses Ella being ill treated, she takes her in as a scullery maid. But as Ella grows up, she is determined to find the truth about her mother's death and appeals to Letitia for help, revealing her only personal possession, a black silk purse. Intrigued, Letitia agrees to begin a quest to solve the mystery of Ella's past.

When Annie and her brother Cory are orphaned Hettie's mother takes them in. Hettie and Annie sell watercress on the streets of Victorian London to make a living. Annie's dissatisfaction grows and her reckless ambition takes her on a separate path. After she disappears in mysterious circumstances, Hettie sets out to find her. While searching for Annie, in the darkest and most dangerous part of London, she uncovers the corruption and depravity of Victorian society. Secrets are revealed that put both their lives put in danger. Can Hettie find her friend before it's too late?

Pretty seventeen-year-old Greta has never known a stable family life. With no father, and loathing her mother Ruby's latest boyfriend, Greta finds life hard at home and is happiest at work with her friends at the Cadbury factory in Birmingham where she is popular with the boys. Life takes a turn...

Growing up in Birmingham, Sylvia and Audrey Whitehouse have always been like chalk and cheese. When the Second World War breaks out, Sylvia is still dreaming of her forthcoming marriage to fiancé Ian while Audrey jumps at the career opportunities the WAAF throws her way. Audrey joins the ranks...

Shortlisted for Historical Romantic Novel in the Romantic Novelists Association Books Awards Birmingham, almost a decade after the end of the Great War, and the women of Lilac Street have had more than their fair share of troubles . . . Rose Southgate is trapped in a loveless marriage. Shy and...