Showing results by publisher "Zaffre" in Historical Fiction

The English Army is besieging Carrickfergus in Ireland. Brilliant but unusual gunner Holcroft Blood of the Royal Train of Artillery is ready to unleash his cannons on the rebellious forces of deposed Catholic monarch James II. But this is more than war for Captain Blood; a lust for private vengeance burns within him. French intelligence agent Henri d'Erloncourt has come across the seas to foment rebellion against William of Orange, the newly installed Dutch ruler of England, Scotland and Ireland.

For years Bilal Hasham and his wife, Mariam, have lived contented, quiet lives in the sleepy rural village of Babbel's End. Now all that is about to change. On her deathbed, Bilal's mother reaches for his hand. Instead of whispering her final prayers, she gives him a task: build a mosque in his country village. Mariam is horrified by Bilal's plan. His friends and neighbours are unnerved. As outrage sweeps Babbel's End, battle lines are drawn. His mother's dying wish reveals deeper divisions in their village than Bilal had ever imagined.

At the heart of Dover's Market Square lies the Castle's Café. A bustling, homely place run by the formidable Nellie Castle and her six children. Since the scandalous birth of her beloved son 10 years before, Marianne, Nellie's eldest daughter, has preferred to stay in the kitchen, hidden away from the town gossips. Overcome with shame, Marianne has never revealed the name of Donny's father - not even to her own mother. But with World War II just around the corner, Marianne's past catches up with her. And suddenly the lives of the Castle family become a lot more complicated.

For the last 20 years, Summer has lived a solitary life, focusing on her career as a vet and trying not to think of the past. Every year she escapes for a few weeks to beautiful Greek islands, losing herself in photography and wreck diving. When the junk room of her clifftop cottage is cleared to accommodate a carer for her father, Summer stumbles across the belongings of her great-grandmother, Gertie Smith. She finds a WWI nurse's uniform, a soldier's blanket and a recording of Gertie's memoirs.

In the midst of WWII, an English mother, Norah, places her eight-year-old daughter on a ship leaving Malaya, desperate to keep her safe from the Japanese army as they move down through the Pacific. In Singapore, a Welsh-Australian nurse, Nesta, has enlisted to tend to Allied troops. But as the island falls to the Japanese she joins the terrified cargo of people, including the heartbroken Norah, crammed aboard the Vyner Brooke merchant ship. Only two days later, they are bombarded from the air off the coast of Indonesia, and in a matter of hours, the Vyner Brooke lies broken on the seabed.

As the Battle of Britain rages, the Castle family are standing their ground at the heart of the community, running Castle's Café. German guns shell Dover and danger lurks around every corner, but despite this, Lily Castle is excited to be starting her nursing career at last. Lily is enjoying her life. She's a good nurse, has a group of friends at the hospital and there is romance on the horizon. That is until her world comes crashing down around her. When she tries to help an injured prisoner of war at the hospital, she ends up implicated in a crime.

Malta, 1943. The war in the air above Malta is over, but the battle for Europe is about to begin. Margarita, a young singer in a Valletta nightclub, has not seen her former lover Henry Dunn since breaking off their affair. His wife Vera, an enigmatic archaeologist, arrives at the club to tell her that Henry has disappeared, presumed dead. While investigating, Margarita stumbles upon the hunt for a notorious and dangerous spy: Nero. As an unlikely bond develops between the two women, and strange secrets emerge, an urgent quest to unmask Nero starts.

Growing up in extreme poverty in London, Pearl thinks life can get no worse. But when her parents discover there's yet another baby on the way, they have to tighten the belt even further. Pearl's mother decides to send her and her younger sister, Eliza, to the workhouse, where they are forced into a new life of hardship and struggle.

Warwickshire, 1875 Emerald Pritchard has lived a privileged life with her parents and her younger sister, Abigail, in the stately Astley House on the outskirts of Nuneaton. But all that suddenly changes when her father disappears leaving the family in debt. They are forced to throw themselves on the mercy of Emerald's uncle who begrudgingly allows them to live in a small cottage within the grounds of his farm.

At the dark heart of the Holocaust, there was a wooden hut whose walls were painted with cartoons; a place where children sang, staged plays and wrote poetry. Safely inside, but still in the shadow of the chimneys, they were given better food, kept free of vermin, and were even taught meditation to imagine full stomachs and a day without fear. The man who became their guiding light was a young Jewish prisoner named Fredy Hirsch. Historian and biographer Wendy Holden tells the inspirational and uplifting true story of Fredy Hirsch: The Teacher of Auschwitz.

The most anticipated spy thriller of 2020, from the Sunday Times best-selling author of Corpus. Autumn 1941. The war is going badly for Britain and its allies. If Hitler is to be stopped, a new weapon is desperately needed. In Cambridge, professor Tom Wilde is approached by an American intelligence officer who claims to know of such a weapon - one so secret even Hitler himself isn't aware of its existence. If Wilde can smuggle the package out of Germany, the Third Reich will surely fall.

It's 1942, and at 19 years old, Hannah Compton has the world at her feet. But with World War II raging, the country is in turmoil, and Hannah decides to do her bit for the War effort. Hannah's beloved grandfather taught her to grow vegetables in his market garden and inspires her to become one of over 200,000 women joining the Land Army. Posted to Salhouse Farm on the outskirts of Norwich, Hannah is excited for the adventure ahead of her. But soon reality hits. Hannah is a city girl at heart, and life in the countryside is not what she imagined.

Abandoned by her parents in favour of a sea view, middle-class Georgiana Ellers has moved to a new town to live with her dreary aunt and uncle. At a particularly dull dinner party, she meets the enigmatic Frances Campbell, a wealthy socialite and enchanting member of the in-crowd. Through Frances and her friends, Georgiana is introduced to a new world of wild parties, drunken debauchery, mysterious young men with strangely alluring hands and the sparkling upper echelons of Regency society.

1942, Manchester. World War II is in full swing, and Lily Mullins is determined to do her bit for the war effort. Her friends and sweetheart have all joined up, and Lily's sure there must be a role for her that goes further than knitting socks for the troops! When she decides to volunteer for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, Lily soon discovers that she has a talent as a wireless operator. Helped along the way by a special gang of girls, she finds strengths she didn't know she had and realises that the safety of the country might just be in her hands....

December 1942. As the war rages on, the accidental death of a young man is almost unremarkable. Except this young man was patrolling the grounds of Hursley Park House, where teams are designing crucial modifications to the Spitfire - and he was found clutching part of a blueprint. January 1943. Josephine Fox is given a code name and a mission as she is seconded to Hursley: uncover the network responsible for information leaks to the enemy.

Whitby, 1845. Amber Ainsley works for the wealthy Greenwoods. But when Amber falls pregnant with Mr Barnaby Greenwood's illegitimate child, he casts her out, leaving her homeless and without an income. Amber flees to Whitby where she stays with her uncle until her child is born. Upon discovering this, Barnaby offers to find a family to raise Amber's daughter, to save her going to the workhouse. Broken-hearted but wanting the best for her child, Amber hands her daughter over.

May 1944. When spy Elisabeth de Mornay, code name Cécile, notices a coded transmission from an agent in the field does not bear his usual signature, she suspects his cover has been blown - something that is happening with increasing frequency. With the situation in occupied France worsening and growing fears that the Resistance has been compromised, Cécile is ordered behind enemy lines.

With a new King in place, tensions are rising in London and across Europe. Shaken by the Great Depression and with talk of another war coming, the Buckingham hotel is trying to regain some stability. But demonstration dancer Raymond de Guise is noticeably absent from the Grand Ballroom dancefloor. Downstairs, chambermaid Nancy Nettleton misses him, but is finally starting to feel more settled at the Buckingham, and hopes her brother Frank will soon call London home, too. But how will timid Frank handle the big city?

In the city of Lahun, Hui lives an enchanted life. The favoured son of a doting father, and ruler-in-waiting of the great city, his fate is set. But behind the beautiful façades a sinister evil is plotting. Craving power and embittered by jealousy, Hui's stepmother, the great sorceress Isetnofret, and Hui's own brother Qen, orchestrate the downfall of Hui's father, condemning Hui and seizing power in the city.

Sweden, 1942—Two old friends meet. They are cousins. One is Prince George, Duke of Kent, brother of the King of England. The other is Prince Philipp von Hessen, a committed Nazi and close friend of Adolf Hitler. Days later, the Prince George is killed in a plane crash in the north of Scotland. The official story is that it was an accident—but not everyone is convinced. There is even a suggestion that the Duke's plane was sabotaged, but with no evidence, Cambridge spy Tom Wilde is sent north to discover the truth . . .