Showing titles in 20th Century

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.

Anna is distraught when her beloved mother, Ines, passes away. She inherits a box of papers, handwritten in Italian and yellowed with age, and a tantalizing promise that the truth about what happened during the war lies within. The diaries lead Anna to the small village of Rofelle, where she slowly starts to heal as she explores sun-kissed olive groves, and pieces together her mother’s past: happy days spent herding sheep across Tuscan meadows cruelly interrupted when World War Two erupted and the Nazis arrived....

A poacher's daughter meets the heir to a country estate – as their destinies intertwine, their lives will never be the same. The Poacher's Daughter is a story of love and fate from bestselling historical saga author Margaret Dickinson. It is 1910 in the Lincolnshire Wolds. Young Rosie...

Dr. Ainsley Graham is cultivating a reputation as an eccentric. Two years ago, he catastrophically ended his academic career by publicly claiming to talk to ghosts. When Joachim Cockburn, a WWI veteran studying the power of delusional thinking, arrives at his door, Ainsley quickly catalogs him as yet another tiresome Englishman determined to mock his life's work. But Joachim is tenacious and openhearted, and Ainsley's intrigued despite himself. 

‘Truly gripping… I loved it.’ Jill Mansell, Sunday Times bestseller A heartbreakingly beautiful novel which captures the endurance and strength of ordinary people in the darkest of times, and the courage of one woman who put her life on the line to join the resistance. Perfect for fans of...

Claudia Hampton - beautiful, famous, independent, dying. But she remains defiant to the last, telling her nurses that she will write a 'history of the world...and in the process, my own'. And it is her story, from a childhood just after the First World War through the Second and beyond. But Claudia's life is entwined with others, and she must allow those who knew her, loved her, the chance to speak. There is Gordon, brother and adversary; Jasper, her untrustworthy lover and father of Lisa, her cool conventional daughter; and then there is Tom, her one great love.

A lost child: On the eve of the first world war, a little girl is found abandoned on a ship to Australia. A mysterious woman called the Authoress had promised to look after her – but the Authoress has disappeared without a trace. A terrible secret: On the night of her 21st birthday, Nell O'Connor learns a secret that will change her life forever. Decades later, she embarks upon a search for the truth that leads her to the windswept Cornish coast and the strange and beautiful Blackhurst Manor, once owned by the aristocratic Mountrachet family.

At the height of World War II, the British Air Transport Auxiliary need help. A group of young women volunteer for action, but the perils of their new job don’t end on the tarmac. Things are tough in the air, but on the ground their abilities as pilots are constantly questioned. There is friction from the start between the new recruits. Spirited American Lizzie turns heads with her audacity, but few can deny her flying skills. She couldn’t be more different from shy, petite Ruby, who is far from diminutive in the sky. It falls to pragmatic pilot May to bring the women together.

Peggy Serrano couldn’t wait for her best friend to come home from the war. But the Jimmy Barnett who returns is much different from the Jimmy who left, changed so drastically by his experience as a medic in Europe that he can barely function. When he attempts the unthinkable, his parents check him into the VA hospital. Peggy determines to help the Barnetts unravel what might have happened to send their son over the edge. She starts by contacting Jimmy’s war buddies, trying to identify the mysterious woman in the photo they find in Jimmy’s belongings.

It's been two months since Will Darling saw Kim Secretan, and he doesn't expect to see him again. What do a rough and ready soldier-turned-bookseller and a disgraced, shady aristocrat have to do with each other anyway? But when Will encounters a face from the past in a disreputable nightclub, Kim turns up, as shifty, unreliable, and irresistible as ever. And before Will knows it, he's been dragged back into Kim's shadowy world of secrets, criminal conspiracies, and underhand dealings.

‘A superbly plotted historical drama… highly recommended!’ The Wishing Shelf One woman must sacrifice everything to uncover the truth in this enthralling historical novel, inspired by the true World War Two campaign Radio Aspidistra… England, 1942: Having fled Germany after her father...

Sons and Lovers, Lawrence's third published novel, was written by the author at the height of his literary powers. The story of class differences (the relationship between a middle-class woman and a miner) in the tough world of coal mining brought a refreshing realism to literature. It remains a challenging text and is studied widely. It is particularly effective on audiobook in the hands of Nottinghamshire reader Paul Slack.

When journalist Ella Franks is unmasked as a woman writing under a male pseudonym, she loses her job. But having risked everything to write, she refuses to be silenced and leaps at the chance to become a correspondent in war-torn France. Already entrenched in the thoroughly male arena of war reporting is feisty American photojournalist Danni Bradford. Together with her best friend and partner, Andy, she is determined to cover the events unfolding in Normandy. And to discover the whereabouts of Andy’s sister, who has followed a lover into the French Resistance.

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 sea stole him from her. Could it bring him back? Winter, 1900. A little boy washes up on the beach of a small fishing village in Scotland, barely alive. He bears an uncanny resemblance to teacher Dorothy's son, lost to the sea many years before. When the village is...

In 1987, Miri returns to her hometown to attend a commemoration of the worst year of her life. Beautiful, gripping and deeply moving, In the Unlikely Event is an unforgettable novel from Judy Blume. Thirty-five years ago, when Miri Ammerman was fifteen and in love for the first time, three...

Wartime Friends is a tale of unbreakable bonds in times of strife, by bestselling author Margaret Dickinson. As the storm clouds of war gather over Britain, two brave, young women will discover the value of true friendship as they deal with troubles of their own while the lives of those they...

The second heartwarming book in the Cornish Girls saga series perfect for fans of Ginny Bell and Elaine Everest 1941. The bombs still fall, but in St. Ives Christmas is finally approaching for the Cornish Girls… It’s 1941, and Christmas is approaching in St. Ives… Shy Lily wishes she could...

From the top-ten bestselling author of One Snowy Night, Rita Bradshaw, comes The Winter Rose, a sweeping family saga set in the north of England. It’s December 1902 and Rose O’Leary is looking forward to her baby girl’s first Christmas. But then tragedy strikes: her husband dies at the...