Showing titles in 20th Century

Peggy and Dar Tenant’s dream for security and respectability has been their driving force since they married. Just as they prepare to buy their own home, tragedy strikes, when Dar is involved in a devastated accident at the docks and Peggy’s world crashes around her. With Dar seriously ill in hospital Peggy’s reduced to scrimping and saving to keep a roof over her family’s head having to revisit the hardships of her youth that she dearly wanted to escape from.

Munich, 1943. My heart breaks as I watch the smug couple carry the tiny bundle into their sinister black limousine. Carefully I write the baby’s name into my secret notebook. No matter the danger, I will do everything I can to reunite him with his mother… As the darkest shadows of the war spread, nurse Margarete Weiss is sent away to work in a mother and baby home in a beautiful corner of the German countryside.

Oxford Street, London 1915. Sally Harper quietly battles to keep Harpers afloat in the difficult days of the war, whilst husband Ben is working all hours for the War Office. Beth Burrow is fighting concern for her husband, Jack, now at sea with the Merchant Navy, and the fear she may never see him again and be blessed with a child. Driven to exhaustion, Maggie Gibbs, is now working as a nursing assistant on the battlefields in France. With the everyday horrors of the casualties of war to contend with she suffers her own personal tragedy when her fiancé's plane ditches in the sea.

Imogen, Rita and Debby all missed the original evacuation and now the authorities are finding it difficult to place them. When Auntie and her niece, Jill, who run the Canary and Linnet Public House, offer to take them in, the billeting officer is greatly relieved. The countryside is heaven to the three little townies, especially after they meet Woody and Josh. They find that by climbing to the top of a tree they are able to watch the comings and goings of the young fighter pilots.

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.

The Woolworths girls have come a long way together . . . Fun loving Maisie, is devoted to her young family and her work at Woolworths. But her happy life with her RAF officer husband, their baby daughter leads her to think of the family she left behind . . . With the war now into its fourth year...

Daphne, a young Jewish Greek artist, finds her life under threat during the Nazi occupation of Athens. In love with her Austrian art teacher, together they must risk it all to escape his dangerous brother, an SS officer. Pursued across Greece, their journey ends on the island of Corfu. In 2023 Liverpool, fine art restorer Flora is planning her Granny Daphne's 100th birthday. Nearing the end of her life, Daphne tells Flora of a valuable piece of art from her youth. A masterpiece which bought her freedom but cost her everything she held dear.

Brought to you by Penguin. The first in a brand-new nostalgic and heart-warming WWII series, perfect for fans of Donna Douglas and Elaine Everest. Alice is nursing an injured hand and a broken heart when she moves to the village of Churchwood at the start of WWII. She is desperate to be...

Violet Ellis is living in the shadows of her father’s ruined reputation. So, when wealthy widower James Atherton offers her employment, she immediately begins the treacherous journey to his home on the remote Cornish island of Aoife’s Bay – despite the bone-chilling allegations surrounding his late wife Elizabeth’s death. In James’s company, Violet begins to feel the love that has been missing all her life. But when anonymous letters start to plague the bay’s residents, threatening to expose what really happened to Elizabeth, Violet feels the hostility towards her grow.

It’s autumn 1940 and the Blitz has cast its shadow over London. Everyone is doing their bit to help, including the three Harrison sisters of the East End’s Victory Walk. Nurse Rose is snowed under in the hospital tending to victims of the bombings. Her sister Clover is on active duty on the south coast, while the baby of the family, Daisy, is growing up quickly working on the London Underground, now that thousands of people are taking shelter down below. Even in wartime, the sisters find time for a wedding, but the bride is keeping a secret, which threatens to come to light.

Family and friendship mean everything under the darkening skies of wartime Britain, by Sunday Times bestselling author Margaret Dickinson. It is the 1930s and the Maitland family have spent the years following the Great War struggling to come to terms with its catastrophic aftermath, and their...

After the death of their mother, Mollie and Annemarie decide to escape from their tiny Irish village and head to Liverpool to board a ship to New York. But in a cruel twist of fate, the girls are separated when the boat leaves without Mollie.

High school best friends Rose and Dax each have a secret—they like the other in a way they shouldn't in 1920s Prohibition Era California. After sharing a first kiss, they're forced apart—each sent to a different city to account for their sin. Rose lands in the coastal tourist city of Half Moon Bay in virtual servitude, working for a distant cousin for pennies. Dax has an idyllic existence in San Francisco, living with her married sister. Then the fates change

1901. Tina Rose is the beloved daughter of a wealthy Jewish family while Edward grew up with an abusive father in the wilds of New Zealand. Despite their differences, the two fall madly in love when Edward arrives in England, looking for a better future. However, the consequences of their love affair are terrible for Tina, as she is shamed by the father she adores, and Edward is sent away. Against all the odds, Tina and Edward find each other again.

Will Darling came back from the Great War with a few scars, a lot of medals, and no idea what to do next. Inheriting his uncle's chaotic secondhand bookshop is a blessing...until strange visitors start making threats. First a criminal gang, then the War Office, both telling Will to give them the information they want, or else. Will has no idea what that information is, and nobody to turn to, until Kim Secretan - charming, cultured, oddly attractive - steps in to offer help. As Kim and Will try to find answers and outrun trouble, mutual desire grows along with the danger.

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....

Will Darling is all right. His business is doing well, and so is his illicit relationship with Kim Secretan - disgraced aristocrat, ex-spy, amateur book-dealer. It's starting to feel like he's got his life under control.

France, 1943. Forced to flee war ravaged Poland, Sara and her parents are offered refuge in a beautiful but dilapidated house in the French Alps. It seems the perfect hideaway, despite haunting traces of the previous occupants who left in haste. But shadows soon fall over Sara's blissful summer and her blossoming romance with local villager Alain. As the Nazis close in, the family is forced to make a harrowing choice that could drive them apart forever, while Sara's own bid for freedom risks several lives.

Flying instructor Ellie Simpson has grown up a tomboy. She's never had an interest in the latest fashions or finding a husband; her only passion is flying her beloved Tiger Moth. But when war is declared, she is no longer be able to do what she loves most - fly.

In 1944, American naval officer Lt. Wyatt Paxton arrives in London to prepare for the Allied invasion of France. He works closely with Dorothy Fairfax, a "Wren" in the Women's Royal Naval Service. Dorothy pieces together reconnaissance photographs with thousands of holiday snapshots of France - including those of her own family's summer home - in order to create accurate maps of Normandy. Maps that Wyatt will turn into naval bombardment plans. As the two spend concentrated time together in the pressure cooker of war, their deepening friendship threatens to turn to love.