Showing titles in 20th Century

Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award From the bestselling author of The Piano Tuner, comes Daniel Mason's The Winter Soldier, a story of love and medicine through the devastation of the First World War. Vienna, 1914. Lucius is a twenty-two-year-old medical student when World War One explodes...

Bloomsbury presents Clover's Child by Amanda Prowse, read by Rosie Cavaliero. When eighteen-year-old Dot meets Sol, she feels that love has arrived at last. Solomon Arbuthnott is a man who can bring colour and warmth to her drab life in sixties London – and what's more, he is a young, handsome...

Brought to you by Penguin. The uplifting and escapist new romcom and perfect holiday read for summer from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Island in the Sun and One Enchanted Evening. In a city full of dreams, will she find her own…? It’s 1968 and it’s cold when Felicity arrives in...

Brought to you by Penguin. The first installment in the Runaway's trilogy from the Sunday Times bestselling author Tammy and her mother, Grace, are desperate to escape Tammy’s violent bully of a father. But when an unforeseen tragedy strikes, mother and daughter must flee Scotland in the dead...

The legendary Emma Harte, heroine of A Woman of Substance, returns… The legendary Emma Harte, heroine of A Woman of Substance, returns… At the centre of this sweeping saga stands Paula O'Neill, beloved granddaughter of Emma and the guardian of her vast business empire. Paula believes that...

A Winter Love Song is a heartwarming and moving story of survival and love from bestselling author Rita Bradshaw. Bonnie Lindsay is born into a travelling fair community in the north-east in 1918, and when her mother dies just months later Bonnie’s beloved father becomes everything to her...

From Annie Murray, the bestselling author of Chocolate Girls, The Bells of Bournville Green and Secrets of the Chocolate Girls, Wartime for the Chocolate Girls is a gritty family saga about love, war and chocolate . . . April 1941. Almost losing her life in a bomb blast while serving in the...

As a 13-year-old World War Two evacuee, Edie’s mother was chosen by the mysterious Juniper Blythe and taken to live at Milderhurst Castle with the Blythe family. In the grand and glorious Milderhurst Castle, a new world opened up for Edie’s mother. She discovered the joys of books and fantasy and writing, but also, ultimately, their dangers. Fifty years later, as Edie chases the answers to her mother’s riddle, she too is drawn to Milderhurst Castle and the eccentric Blythe sisters. Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother’s past.

On a June day, a young woman in a summer dress steps off a Chicago-bound bus into a small midwestern town. She doesn't intend to stay. She is just passing through. Yet her stopping here has a reason and it is part of a story that you will never forget. The time is the 1950s, when life was...

Meet The East End Angels, the newest members of Station Seventy-Five's ambulance crew. Strong-willed Winnie loves being part of the crew at Station Seventy-Five, but her parents are less than happy. She has managed to avoid their pleas to join the WRENS so far, but when a tragedy hits too close to home she finds herself wondering if she's cut out for this life after all. Former housemaid Bella was forced to leave the place she loved when she lost it all, and it's taken her a while to find somewhere else to call home. She's finally starting to build a new life, but when the air raids begin, it seems she may have to start over once again.

Summer 1942. Britain is in the depths of war and the Women’s Land Army is hard at work looking after the farms while the men are away fighting. While patriotism, duty and a wonderful spirit of camaraderie sustain the Land Girls through tough times, it’s no surprise that love is also often on their minds. For Yorkshire Land Girls and firm friends Grace, Brenda and Una, romance in wartime comes with a host of challenges. There’s a wedding to plan, but married bliss is threatened when the time comes for the groom to enlist.

Bristol 1939. At forty years of age, Mary Anne Randall still turns heads. With an abusive husband spending most of his wages on beer, she has resigned herself to be the sole breadwinner to protect her family and keep the wolves from the door. In order to make ends meet, Mary Anne runs a pawnbroking business from the wash house at the end of the garden. Following the outbreak of war an opportunity presents itself to escape her loveless marriage and find true love. Will she take that chance, or carry on living just for her children and not for herself?

Spain, 1939: Following the wishes of her parents to keep her safe during the war, a young girl, Julia, enters a convent in Barcelona. Looking for a way to maintain her links to the outside world, she volunteers to help in a maternity clinic. But worrying adoption practices in the clinic force Sister Julia to decide how far she will go to help those placed in her care. England, 2011: Six months after her parents' shocking death, 34-year-old journalist and jazz enthusiast Ruby Rae has finally found the strength to pack away their possessions and sell the family home. But as she does so, she unearths a devastating secret....

Heartwarming and nostalgic fiction from the best selling author of The District Nurses of Victory Walk. It’s 1943 and the district nurses have two new recruits… As the country ramps up for D-Day, the new nurses getting to know their patients on their patch in London’s East End. Lily is...

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...

After spending her childhood in Haddon House Children's Hostel, Alice Tucker is selected to go into service at Holmorton Lodge. Left behind in the workhouse after the death of her father and the disappearance of her mother, the only clues to Alice's past lie in hazy childhood memories. Now, ten years later, she longs to uncover the truth about her family and who she really is. When a chance discovery leads her from a Welsh nursing home to a solicitor's office in Manchester, Alice begins to unravel a story far more tangled than she imagined.

När 18-åriga Iola står inför ett tvångsäktenskap med en rik, äldre man ser hon ingen annan utväg än att fly. Hon söker skydd hos sin gamla barnskötare Nanny som precis ska ge sig av för att ta ett nytt barnvaktsjobb hos en lord i södra Frankrike. Iola vet inte vad hon ska ta sig till, hon har ingen annanstans att ta vägen och snart försvinner hennes sista trygga hamn. Men under natten dör Nanny och Iola fattar ett drastiskt beslut som leder henne rakt i armarna på hennes livs kärlek och äventyr.

The Angelotti family reels when the lost son, given up for adoption in the war, traces his birth family and returns to the fold, with devastating consequences. As poverty-stricken newlyweds, Laura and Giovanni Angelotti were forced to put their first child - a boy - up for adoption. They have had other children since, and their first little Italian cafe has become a restaurant empire, but Laura is still haunted by thoughts of the baby she lost. 

Can the Woolworth girls achieve their dreams in time for their futures to begin? The Woolworths Saturday Girls is the seventh instalment in Elaine Everest's much-loved Woolworths series. 1950. The Second World War is over and life has moved on for the Woolworth girls, Sarah, Maisie and Freda. In...

In the aftermath of the General Strike, times are tough for coal miners and their families. When Cally loses her beloved mum, she hopes her father will comfort her. But instead she soon acquires a cruel stepmother, and Cally begins to fear that she is on her own. Through uncomfortable years in service, to a terrifying brush with the streets, through hard work and determination, Cally finally finds a place for herself. She even trusts enough in the future to create her own family, despite being abandoned by her own.