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Grace Kettle lives a comfortable life with her beloved mother and reliable old Mrs Batley - as long as Judge Kettle, her formidable and threatening father, is away from home. As she grows into a gentle and pious young woman the atmosphere at home dar...
London, 1941. The East End Angels - Frankie, Bella and Winnie - are settled into life as ambulance crew members at LAAS Station Seventy-Five. Frankie's grandfather is unwell and she promised him she would always look after Ivy, her step-grandmother, but...
London, 1910. Twins Lester and Lillia Holdsworth are destined for the stage. Lester is a brilliant pianist; Lillia a magnificent opera singer. But their cruel father has other ideas for their future. Lester is sent to a military academy, while Lillia...
Angela McClusky is haunted by the young baby that she abandoned on the steps of the workhouse. Born out of wedlock and the result of a traumatic assault, the child only has a locket to remind her of the family she never knew. Angela has carried the guilt...
Sarah Sullivan and Harry Higgins are struggling to stop the doors of Red Cliff's Ragged School from closing for good. An important inspection is looming and there is still so much for the pair to do if their pupils - the poorest and neediest orphans of...
1943: In a remote corner of the Scottish Highlands, something momentous is underway. When Effie's father receives a government notice to quit Kirk Farm, the lives of the Ross family and those of the whole community are utterly disrupted. But for Effie...
In 1937, courageous and independent Martha Gellhorn travels to Madrid to report on the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War, and finds herself drawn to the stories of ordinary people caught in devastating conflict. She also finds herself unexpectedly -...
"London, 1947: Besieged by the harshest winter in living memory, burdened by onerous shortages and rationing, the people of postwar Britain are enduring lives of quiet desperation despite their nation's recent victory. Among them are Ann Hughes and M...
"Louisa Reeve has it all: a charming, devilishly handsome husband with a successful business as a sapphire trader, a beautiful home in colonial Ceylon, a fledgling career of her own. Except for the one thing she longs for more than anything: a child....
"In 1930s Greater London, Shirley is a talented ballerina who dreams of becoming a principal dancer at the Sadler's Wells Ballet Company. Yet one summer, on the way back from staying with her grandparents in France, she meets a handsome young man, Alan,...
"A survivor of the Donner Party excursion recounts her life as a teenager escaping an abusive family, taking the journey with the Donner family and enduring a tragic winter in the Sierras."--Publisher's description.
"When Frances Bumgarten encounters a handsome stranger in her kitchen in the middle of the night, her first impulse is to wallop the scoundrel on the head with a bread paddle. And when Frankie discovers he is 'The Fox', a disarmingly arrogant purveyor...
"After her father and sister are killed, Salome and her mother move to Jerusalem. When a relative betroths Salome to a pagan prince half her age, she questions God's plan. When she finds herself crowned queen of Judea, she learns that a woman committed...
"In 1761 a tiny, odd-looking girl named Marie is born in a village in Switzerland. After the death of her parents, she is apprenticed to an eccentric wax sculptor and whisked off to the seamy streets of Paris, where they meet a domineering widow and her...
"The Goldbaums' influence reaches across Europe. They are the confidants and bankers of governments and emperors. Little happens in Europe without their say-so and even less without their knowledge. But Greta Goldbaum has no say at all in who she'll ...
"Tayler Hale is ahead of her time as one of the first women naturalists. She has always loved adventure and the great outdoors, and her remote job location also helps keep her away from the clutches of the man to whom she once made a foolish promise....
"An orphan, Dores is working in the kitchen of a sugar plantation in 1930s Brazil when she meets Graca, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy sugar baron. Born to wildly different worlds, the girls quickly bond over shared mischief, and then, on a deeper...
"Hedy Kiesler is lucky. Her beauty leads to a starring role in a controversial film and marriage to a powerful Austrian arms dealer, allowing her to evade Nazi persecution despite her Jewish heritage. But Hedy is also intelligent. At lavish Vienna di...
Sydney, 1960s: Newspaper reporter Pearl Keoghhas been relegated to the women's pages as punishment for her involvement in the anti-war movement, and is desperate to find her two young brothers before they are conscripted. Newly arrived from Sweden, A...
France, 1600s: The Thirty Years War has spread across Europe, alliances are stretched to breaking point, and enemies advance on every side. And while Louis XIII sits on the throne, the real power lies with the notorious Cardinal Richelieu. Now, with....
Lancashire, 1930. Leah Turner's father has been killed in an accident at the laundry. Since her mother died years ago, she becomes sole provider for her little sister. But women's wages are half those of men's and even after pawning their few belongi...
As World War Two grips Europe, Kitty boards a ship for England; leaving her cruel father to work in a munitions factory. She hadn't wanted to leave Ireland, but she really needed the money with tiny baby Billy back in Dublin without a father. In Lanc...
North London, November 1913. After her mother dies, Livvie Bone is left to support her family and protect her younger siblings from their drunken father. But life in Wood Green is hard and full of danger. When the mysterious Joe Hunter steps in to help...
The death of the family matriarch, Charlotte Atkinson, at Windfell Manor casts a long shadow over Charlotte's husband Archie and her two children, Isabelle and Danny. Isabelle takes over the running of Atkinson's department store but her pride - and heart...
"A heart-warming story of friendship and family during the first Christmas of World War Two. Autumn 1939 and London prepares to evacuate its young. In No 5 Jubilee Street, Bermondsey, 10-year-old Connie is determined to show her parents that she's a brave...
"Seeking a fresh start during the Great Depression, fifteen-year-old Hannah's Amish family moves from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to a North Dakota homestead, but face harsh realities and nearly starve until Hannah takes matters into her own...
"From the blistering cane fields of the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, from the earliest aquariums of London to the eerie deserts of Morocco, a boy rises from the ashes of slavery in the 1830s to become a free man of the world"--
"A young painter's traumatic past threatens to derail her career at a prestigious summer artists' colony run by Louis Comfort Tiffany of Tiffany & Co. fame"--
Book
"In 1850, Sophie Neumann flees New York with her two young charges after witnessing a crime. Reinhold Weiss has finally purchased his own small farm when an old friend shows up, pleading for help. But how can he help her when mounting debts and past ...
"As she helps to nurse the dying Queen Elizabeth, Frances Gorges longs for the fields and ancient woods of her parents' Hampshire estate, where she has learned to use the flowers and herbs to become a much-loved healer. Frances is happy to stay in her...
"One September evening in 1785, the merchant Jonah Hancock hears urgent knocking on his front door and finds that one of his captains has sold Jonah's ship for what appears to be a mermaid. As gossip spreads through the docks, coffee shops, parlours ...
"The Nazis have forced Natia and Teodor from their Polish farm to a labor camp. Separated, Natia is chosen to be the housekeeper for the camp's overseer, and her husband Teodor is sent to work in the factory. Despite the strict camp rules--and the co...
"1926: Violet Armstrong is one of the few remaining members of staff working at the grand Evergreen Spa Hotel as it closes down over winter. Only a handful of guests are left, including the heir to a rich grazing family, his sister and her suave suitor....
"Southampton, 1912. Jessie is made from tough stuff. At just 19, after the death of her father, she opted not to follow her mother back to Ireland, preferring instead to take charge of her own destiny. When Jessie marries an Irishman and takes over the...
"The East End of London, 1930. Work is scarce, food is in short supply and there is political unrest on the streets. But in the face of all this hardship, there's always friendship. Becky, Bernie and Rose - three best friends from very different backgrounds...
"1940 Cornwall, England. Penhallow Hall shelters a handful of Land Girls, sent to the coast to avoid the horrors of London's Blitz. But the beautiful, arrogant Diana Devlin, impatient with the sleepy village and its placid residents, can't resist the...
"The second novel in the Mr Pepys series by popular historical novelist Deborah Swift. The Great Plague has London in its grip. As the summer heat rises, red crosses mark the doors, wealthy citizens flee and only the poor remain to face the march of ...
"Maria Vittoria is embroidering a sheet for her dowry trunk. Her father has gone to find her a husband. He's taken his mule, a photograph and a pack of food: home-made sopressa sausage, cold polenta, a little flask of wine - no need to take water - the...
"In 1965 as Danish architect Jørn Utzon's striking vision for the Sydney Opera House transforms the skyline and unleashes a storm of controversy, the shadow of the Vietnam War and a deadly lottery threaten to tear the country apart. Journalist Pearl ...
"In 1906 Minnesota, Nilda Carlson's life now resembles the images that filled her dreams in Norway. But when she spots the man from her terrifying past in town, her new life and hope for love could come crashing down around her. Did danger follow her...
Sunderland, 1941. Gloria is smitten with her newly arrived bundle of joy, but baby Hope's first weeks are bittersweet. Hope's father is missing at sea and Gloria must lean on her girls for support. Meanwhile, head welder Rosie has turned her back on love...
It's 1942 and Annie Walker is the landlady of the Rovers Return on Coronation Street. With her husband Jack away fighting for King and Country, Annie must juggle lone motherhood with keeping the regulars happy. Gracie Ashton works behind the bar at the...
West Yorkshire, 1926. After completing her training in Steeple Street, Agnes Sheridan is looking forward to making her mark as Bowden's first district nurse, confident she can make a difference in the locals' lives. But when Agnes arrives, she's treated...
Cornwall, 1911. Freya Penhaligon is eagerly awaiting the return of her beau, the historian Tristan MacKenzie, but the surprise arrival of her mother on the same coach brings uneasiness and suspicion to more than the Penhaligon family. When Tristan proposes...
The year is 1914 and Pips Maitland resists her mother's wishes that she settle down with a suitable husband and raise children. All she wants is to be a doctor like her father and her brother, Robert. Hearing that her father's friend, Dr John Hazelwood,...
"Carrie Ann Collier has been a newlywed for nineteen blissful days--as blissful as life can be in the midst of war, that is. Soon that war will take a toll she never expected. When her new husband, Peyton, goes missing during battle, she refuses to believe...
"In Victorian England appointed as trustee of a baron's legendary collection, Eleanor must choose whether to donate the priceless treasures to a museum or allow them to pass to the baron's son--the man who once broke her heart, but claims to still love...
"London, 1942. 13-year-old Nell and five-year-old Olive are being sent away from the devastation of the East End. They are leaving the terror of the Blitz and nights spent shivering in air raid shelters behind them, but will the strangers they are placed...
"Liverpool, 1941. Haunted by the death of her sister, June Lavender takes a job at a Dr Barnardo’s orphanage. June couldn’t save Clara from their father’s violence, but perhaps she can help children whose lives have been torn apart by war. When June...
"Hyderabad, India. 1798. Beatrice Sinclair, a grieving young widow facing financial destitution, has travelled from Hampshire to Hyderabad to visit her brother, an employee of the British East India Company. There, she is astonished to discover that he...
"A village without a voice. That's what the locals are saying about Llandegwen, deep in the Welsh valleys. The village choir, once a source of pride for the small mining community, has been forced to disband; the elderly choirmaster heartbroken by the...
"It's the summer of 1968, the year of love and hate, of Prague Spring and Cold War winter. Two English students, Ellie and James, set off to hitch-hike across Europe. Somewhere in southern Germany they decide, on a whim, to visit Czechoslovakia where...
"With the beautiful and cunning Poppaea at his side, Nero Augustus commands the Roman Empire, ushering in an unprecedented era of artistic and cultural splendor. Although he has yet to produce an heir, his power is absolute. But in the tenth year of his...
"Vienna, 1914. Lucius is a twenty-two-year-old medical student when World War I explodes across Europe. Enraptured by romantic tales of battlefield surgery, he enlists, expecting a position at a well-organized field hospital. But when he arrives -- at...
"In 1887, Isabel Bilton is the eldest of three daughters of a middle-class military family, growing up in a small garrison town. By 1891 she is the Countess of Clancarty, dubbed "the peasant countess" by the press, and a member of the Irish aristocra...
"A story of love, hope, and healing set in the midst of the Civil War in the Shenandoah Valley where nineteen-year-old Carrie Ann Bell is forced to choose between her childhood friend Confederate Major Joshua Blevins and her rescuer and protector Union...
"In 1911, Carrie Strahorn wrote a memoir entitled Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage, which shared some of the most exciting events of 25 years of traveling and shaping the American West with her husband, Robert Strahorn, a railroad promoter, investor, ...
After a cold, hard winter on the streets, three orphan children are about to give up hope when unexpected events bring them to the doorstep of a grand house in Ardwick, Manchester. Taken in by the firm but kind-hearted cook, the young friends can har...
A moving story of heartbreak and friendship in 1950s BritainTilbury, 1950s. The Empire is a pub run by Vi, Doris's mother, but when Doris falls pregnant out of marriage, she is kicked out of the house and forced to fend for herself. Desperate to look...
Hardworking Essie Chapman lives with her boatman father on the banks of the Thames. When an accident leaves him bedridden with only ale to ease his pain, it is Essie who takes up the oars for the family's survival, risking her life to ferry passengers...
After losing her family in the Great War, Nell is grateful to marry Stan Hibbert, believing she can recapture a sense of family with him. But five years on, she is just another back-street housewife, performing miracles with scrag-end. When she discovers...
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 young, wealthy spinster Letitia Fairch...
Emmeline Lake and her best friend Bunty are trying to stay cheerful despite the Luftwaffe making life thoroughly annoying for everyone. Emmy dreams of becoming a Lady War Correspondent, and when she spots a job advertisement in the newspaper, she seizes...
"In the spring of 1885, seventeen-year-old Jessilyn Harney finds herself orphaned and alone on her family's homestead. Desperate to fend off starvation and predatory neighbors, she cuts off her hair, binds her chest, saddles her beloved mare, and sets...
"It's the summer of 1922, and nineteen-year-old Paulien Mertens finds herself in Paris--broke, disowned, and completely alone. Everyone in Belgium, including her own family, believes she stole millions in a sophisticated con game perpetrated by her.....
"The riveting novel of iron-willed Alva Vanderbilt and her illustrious family as they rule Gilded-Age New York, from the New York Times bestselling author of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. Alva Smith, her southern family destitute after the Civil War,...
"The women of Hope River trust midwife Patience Hester, whose skill in delivering babies is known for miles around. But though the Great Depression is behind them, troubles are not, for Europe is at war...and it can only be a matter of time before the...
World-renowned war artist Dame Laura Knight is commissioned to paint propaganda portraits of factory girls and is sent to the ordnance factories in her hometown of Nottingham. At first she relishes the opportunity, but when she starts work on a portrait...
Cornwall 1793. As the French Revolution threatens the stability of England, so too is discontent brewing in the heart of Celia Cavendish. Promised to the brutal Viscount Vallenforth, she must find a way to break free. Inspired by her cousin Arbella, ...
Brand new saga to coincide with ITV's three-part historical drama Christmas at Emmerdale is the first in a sweeping new saga, exploring the lives of Emmerdale's much-loved families during the run up to the Great War. August 1914, and a terrible war begins,...
Matron Kathleen Fox has the job of putting the Nightingale Hospital back together. But memories and ghosts of those lost fill the bomb-damaged buildings, and she wonders if she is up to the task. In the name of festive cheer Kathleen decides to put on...
Summer, 1944. Bombed out by the blitz, Bethany Merston takes up a post as companion to elderly Alice Summer, last remaining inhabitant of the dilapidated and crumbling Summerhayes estate. Now a shadow of its former glory; most of the rooms have been shut...
"It is September 1940, and recently widowed Evelyn has been plucked from her humdrum civil service job in Woking and transported to the opulent world of wartime Hollywood. Young, bright and fluent in nine languages, she is to assist the British Colonel...
"Young socialite Anna Nicholson is having trouble focusing on her upcoming marriage due to lingering questions about her birth mother. After hiring detectives to learn more about the past, Anna decides that some secrets are better left hidden. Her choice...
"1838: Northumberland, England. Longstone Lighthouse on the Farne Islands has been Grace Darling's home for all of her twenty-two years. When she and her father rescue shipwreck survivors in a furious storm, Grace becomes celebrated throughout England....
"Annie Wood, a housemaid-turned-pattern designer, jumps at the chance to design her own clothing line when a wealthy New York couple offers to finance the endeavor. Joining the project is Annie's new husband, Sean Culver, her best friend at Butterick,...
"Narrated by the mother of Russia's last tsar, this vivid, historical novel brings to life the story of Maria Feodorovna, who witnessed the splendor and tragic downfall of the Romanovs as she fought to save her dynasty in its final years. From the op...
"A fictionalized account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, or Greasy Grass as the Indians called it, told by a series of first-hand accounts from both white and Indian points of view provides a panorama of the battle in which a sense of what most ...
"After years spent living with her mother and oppressive grandfather in Athens, Ariadne runs away to her father in Corinth, only to discover the perilous secret that destroyed his marriage: Galenos is the infamous thief who robs the city's corrupt of...
It's Christmas Eve. Flurries of snow fall on the cobbled streets of Whitechapel and an abandoned baby, swaddled in a blanket, is found on a doorstep in Angel Alley... Named after the street on which she was abandoned, Angel Winter is taken into a loving...
1939. All over Britain, children are being evacuated. Eve Armstrong and her little brother are headed for Devon with their mother. As the train pulls out of London, Eve sees a rude boy sticking his tongue out amongst the shabbily dressed evacuees. At...
1940. Molly Swift, at 27, has already suffered the tragic loss of her two-year-old daughter Emily, to the flu outbreak of 1935. Now she waits for news of her shopkeeper husband Ted, who volunteered for the British Expeditionary Forces.Molly helps run...
Molly lives with her repugnant father, who has betrayed her many times. From a young age, living on the streets of London's East End, she has seen the harsh realities of life. When she's kidnapped by a gang and forced into their underworld, her future...
"One rainy morning in June, two years after the end of World War II, a minor traffic accident brings together Eleanor Moskowitz and Patricia Bellamy. Their encounter seems fated: Eleanor, a teacher and recent Vassar graduate, needs a job. Patricia's ...
"May 2013: Author Sarah Blake is struggling to find a big idea for her next book. Breaking a promise to her mother, she opens her great-grandfather's chest from the RMS Lusitania, sunk by a German U-Boat in 1915. What she discovers there could change...
"A complex portrait of a small town in Louisiana in 1943, as seen in the twelve hours before a black teenager's execution for the alleged rape of a white woman -- 1943. Eighteen year old Willie Jones sits in his cell in New Iberia awaiting his execution...
"Though born into bondage on a 'miserable tobacco farm' in Little Dixie, Missouri, Cathy Williams was never allowed to consider herself a slave. According to her mother, she was a captive, bound by her noble warrior blood to escape the enemy. Her means...
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