Toward the Sea of Freedom

Hardworking London governess Helen Davenport longs for a family of her own but knows the prospect of finding a suitable husband grows dimmer each year. Then she spots an advertisement seeking wives for the churchgoing bachelors of colonial New Zealand and begins an affectionate correspondence with a gentleman farmer.Meanwhile, not far away in Wales, society life bores Gwyneira Silkham, beautiful, daring daughter of a wealthy sheep breeder.

Bringing 16th century Languedoc vividly to life, Kate Mosse's The Burning Chambers is a gripping story of love and betrayal, mysteries and secrets; of war and adventure, conspiracies and divided loyalties....   

It has been 24 years since a young Helena spent a magical holiday in Cyprus, where she fell in love for the first time. When the now crumbling house, Pandora, is left to her by her godfather, she returns to spend the summer there with her family. At the difficult age of 13, her son, Alex, is torn between protecting his mother and learning the truth about his real father. Both Helena and Alex know that life will never be the same once Pandora's secrets have been revealed.

Thirteen-year-old Lisa escapes from Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport and arrives in England in August 1939. She can't speak a word of English, and among her meagre belongings is one precious photograph of her family. But when the Blitz blows her new home apart, she wakes up in hospital with no memory of who she is. The authorities give her a new name and despatch her to a children's home. With the war in full swing, what will become of Lisa now?

Maia D'Apliése and her five sisters were all adopted as babies. When their father dies each of them are given a clue to their true heritage - a clue which takes Maia across the world… Rio de Janeiro, 1927, Izabela Bonifacio convinces her father to allow her to accompany him to Europe. There, in the heady, vibrant cafés of Montparnasse, she meets ambitious young sculptor Laurent Brouilly, and knows at once that her life will never be the same again…

Rita and Rosie Stevens are only nine and five years old when their widowed mother marries a violent bully. Under pressure from her new husband, she is persuaded to send the girls to an orphanage. It is not long before the powers that be decide to send a consignment of orphans to their sister institution in Australia. Among them, without their family's consent or knowledge, are Rita and Rosie, the throwaway children.

Fifteen-year-old Beth's dreams are shattered when she, her brother, Sam, and her baby sister, Molly, are orphaned. Sam believes that only in America can they make their fortunes, so, reluctantly leaving Molly with adoptive parents, brother and sister embark on the greatest adventure of their lives.

Sweeping from the Great War, through the Jazz Age to the 1940s, this unforgettable tale follows the entwined lives of the Fentons, an aristocratic family from Yorkshire. Set against the rich canvas of the first half of the twentieth century, A Season of Secrets is an unforgettable tale of passion and betrayal, love and war from the ever popular Margaret Pemberton.

London, 1732: Nora Reed, the daughter of a merchant, falls hopelessly in love with her father's clerk, Simon. Despite their differing social class, the star-crossed lovers dream of a future on a tropical island - until tragedy strikes, and Nora must face a life without her soulmate. Hopeless, Nora enters a marriage of convenience with Elias Fortnam, a widower and sugar planter in Jamaica. Even without Simon, she is determined to somehow fulfill their tropical fantasy.

Lush, green, fragrant: the Indian hills of Assam are full of promise. But eighteen-year-old Clarissa Belhaven is full of worry. The family tea plantation is suffering, and so is her father, still grieving over the untimely death of his wife, while Clarissa's fragile sister, Olive, needs love and resourceful care. Beautiful and headstrong, Clarissa soon attracts the attention of young, brash Wesley Robson, a rival tea planter.

In the chaos of World War II, Polish teenagers Helena and Luzyna Grabowski have lost everything. Without parents or a home, they are shipped to a refugee camp in Persia, where the days ahead hold only darkness. When they hear that orphans are being selected for relocation to New Zealand, Helena is filled with hope - until the officials say they have a place only for her younger sister. On the morning she is to be transported, Luzyna fails to join the chosen group, and Helena takes her place.

It’s the summer of 1981. Newly widowed Bessie Halstone is fleeing Belfast with her young son, Herkie. She’s wrongly suspected of pocketing £10,000, the loot from a heist carried out by Packie, her late (and unmourned) husband. Bessie has plans. She longs to make a fresh start. But first she must reach the safety of her sister’s home, in County Sligo, to borrow money for the trip.

Charlotte Booth loves her father and the home they share, which is set high up in the limestone escarpments of Crummockdale. But when a new businessman, Joseph Dawson, enters their lives, both Charlotte and her father decide he's the man for her, and within six months Charlotte marries the dashing mill owner from Accrington. Then a young mill worker is found dead in the swollen River Ribble. With Joseph's business nearly bankrupt, it becomes apparent that all is not as it seems, and Joseph is not the man he pretends to be.

Sarah Foster's parents have been fighting a constant battle with poverty, disease and crime. When her father, Will, is involved in a terrible accident at work, their lives became even harder. But Will's good deeds of the past pay off as John Rayner decides to rescue the Fosters. John provides them with work and a house on the estate owned by his wealthy family.

A powerful new saga, in the grand tradition of Katie Flynn, Dilly Court and Josephine Cox, of one woman's quest for happiness after a bitter tragedy, filled with romance, drama and triumph in adversity.When terrible tragedy strikes at the local colliery, the residents of Fairley Terrace's 10 houses suffer more than one loss, and for Maggie Donovan the word turns upside down. Turning for comfort to the one man she can trust, she finds a sudden and undeniable passion instead.