The Girl Who Fell from the Sky

Returned to an England she barely knows and a postwar world she doesn't understand, Marian searches for something on which to ground her life. Family and friends surround her, and a RAF officer attempts to bring her the normality of love and affection, but she is haunted by the guilt of knowing that her contribution to the war helped to develop the atom bomb. Where, in the complexities of peacetime, does her loyalty lie?

Detta works as a translator for a Nazi-run labour camp for French workers. One winter morning in early 1945, Detta passes a group of exhausted British prisoners of war who are being force-marched westwards. The following day she receives an urgent message to contact the local priest. He is harbouring a group of escaped British prisoners of war in the manse: can she help? London, 1989. Miranda is a 19-year-old photography student in London, in thrall to her older boyfriend, a journalist called Quill. In November the fall of the Berlin Wall is all over the news.  

Autumn 1928. Three young women are on their way to India, each with a new life in mind. Rose, a beautiful but naive bride-to-be, is anxious about leaving her family and marrying a man she hardly knows. Victoria, her bridesmaid couldn't be happier to get away from her overbearing mother, and is determined to find herself a husband. And Viva, their inexperienced chaperone, is in search of the India of her childhood, ghosts from the past and freedom.

High on a Czechoslovak hill, the Landauer House shines as a wonder of steel and glass. This radiant 1930s house, with its unique Glass Room, quickly tarnishes as the storm clouds of World War II gather. The house passes from hand to hand, from Czech to Russian, and bears witness to both the best and the worst of the history of Eastern Europe.

Paris, 1940. The Nazis have occupied the city - and the Ritz. The opulent old hotel, so loved by Parisians, is now full of swaggering officers, their minions and their mistresses. For American Olivia Olsen, working as a chambermaid at the hotel means denying her nationality and living a lie, every day bringing the danger of discovery closer. When Hitler’s right-hand man moves in and makes her his pet, she sees an opportunity to help the Resistance - and draw closer to Jack, her contact, whose brusque instructions may be a shield for something more…

Paris, 1943. The swastika flies from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Soldiers clad in field grey patrol the streets. Buildings have been renamed, books banned, art stolen and people disappeared. Amongst the missing is an Allied intelligence cell. Gone to ground? Betrayed? Dead? Britain's Special Operations Executive need to find out. They recruit ex-Parisian and Bletchley Park codebreaker Harry Mitchell to return to the city he fled two years ago. 

When Hazel is given the chance to parachute into Nazi-occupied France, she seizes the opportunity to do more for the British war effort than file paperwork. Alongside her childhood friend, French-born Rose, she quickly rises up the ranks of the freedom fighters. For Rose, the Resistance is a link to her late husband, and a way to move forward without him. What starts out as helping downed airmen becomes a bigger cause when they meet Sophia, a German escapee and fierce critic of Hitler who is wanted by the Gestapo.

In the summer of 1968, the year of Prague Spring with a Cold War winter, Oxford students James Borthwick and Eleanor Pike set out to hitchhike across Europe, complicating a budding friendship that could be something more. Having reached southern Germany, they decide on a whim to visit Czechoslovakia, where Alexander Dubcek's 'socialism with a human face' is smiling on the world. 

For Kay, living on her husband Bror's country estate, the Nazi invasion is a time of uncertainty. Bror is desperate to preserve the legacy of his home, even if it means co-existing with the enemy; Kay cannot do the same. She is lured by British Intelligence into a world of resistance. Tasked with protecting an SOE agent, Kay learns the art of subterfuge. Caught on opposing sides, will Kay and Bror find their way back to one another?

Thirty years ago something terrible happened to Luna's mother. Something she's prepared to reveal only after her death. In settling her mother's affairs, Luna finds more questions than answers until something impossible and magical happens.... Luna meets her mother as a young woman back in the summer of 1977. If she can truly travel back in time, she can change things. But in order to save her mother's life, will she have to sacrifice her own?

Germany, 1942. Franciscan friar Anton Starzmann is stripped of his place in the world when his school is seized by the Nazis. He relocates to a small German hamlet to wed Elisabeth Herter, a widow who seeks a marriage - in name only - to a man who can help raise her three children. Anton seeks something too - atonement for failing to protect his young students from the wrath of the Nazis. But neither he nor Elisabeth expects their lives to be shaken once again by the inescapable rumble of war. 

Inside the spectacular Grand Ballroom of the exclusive Buckingham Hotel the rich and powerful, politicians, film stars, even royalty rub shoulders with Raymond de Guise and his troupe of talented dancers from all around the world, who must enchant them, captivate them and sweep away their cares. Accustomed to waltzing with the highest of society, Raymond knows a secret from his past could threaten all he holds dear.

1956. It's Ellen Crosby's first day as a student nurse at Ambergate Hospital. When she meets a young woman admitted by her father, little does Ellen know that a choice she will make is to change both their lives for ever...2006. Sarah is drawn to the now abandoned Ambergate. Whilst exploring the old corridors she discovers a suitcase belonging to a female patient who entered Ambergate fifty years earlier. The shocking contents, untouched for half a century, will lead Sarah to unravel a forgotten story of tragedy and lost love, and the chance to make an old wrong right.

1995, London. When Sir James Harrison, one the greatest actors of his generation, passes away at the age of 95 he leaves behind not just a heartbroken family but also a secret so shocking, so devastating that it could rock the English establishment to its core. Joanna Haslam is an ambitious young journalist assigned to cover the legendary actor's funeral. The great and the good of the celebrity world are there. But Joanna stumbles on something dark beneath the glamour: the mention of a letter James Harrison has left behind, the contents of which others have been desperate to conceal for over 70 years. 

Winner of the 2014 Richard & Judy Search for a Bestseller competition. Abandoned on a bank of snow as a baby, Amy is taken in at nearby Hatville Court. But the masters and servants of the grand estate prove cold and unwelcoming. Amy's only friend and ally is the sparkling young heiress Aurelia Vennaway. So when Aurelia tragically dies young, Amy is devastated. But Aurelia leaves Amy one last gift. A bundle of letters with a coded key. A treasure hunt that only Amy can follow. A life-changing discovery awaits ... if only she can unlock the secret.