Showing results by author "Kate Hewitt" in All Categories

Nazi-occupied Vienna, 1940. As bombs fall over Europe, Hannah Stern is a 27-year-old nurse who is just trying to survive. When she takes a position at Vienna’s esteemed psychiatric hospital, Am Steinhof, she thinks it will take her away from the danger. Her estranged half-brother has arranged the job for her on the condition that she must take his son, Willi, there too. He insists it’s a place where Willi will be safe. And Hannah soon forms a close bond with the sweet, fragile child in her care.

The year 1819, Isle of Mull, Scotland: When Allan MacDougall tells his sweetheart, Harriet Campbell, he loves her on the eve of his departure to the New World, it breaks her heart. Because there is no way for her to go with him. She promises to wait for him, even though it could be years before they are reunited. They vow to write, but when crucial letters go astray, they feel further apart than either could have imagined.

Germany, 1939: When Rosa Herzelfeld boards the SS St Louis, she doesn’t believe its promise of freedom. Surely there can be no escape from the Nazis, not even on the other side of the world. Besides, she knows that no matter how far she travels, there is no escaping her past....

It only took a moment for everything to go wrong. In the blink of an eye, the birthday party became a nightmare when we heard the screams… How did this happen? And who is to blame? I’m so happy as I walk to pick up my son from the party. It’s his first since we moved here, and I know he’s found it hard settling in. Just as I’ve found it hard to make friends among the mothers at the school gates. But as I turn the corner, my heart stops. Instead of the picture-perfect birthday party I left earlier, there’s an ambulance.

France, 1939: When Jewish refugee Hannah Lerner and her beloved younger sister Lotte arrive in a small French town alone, with no family to turn to, Hannah takes her sister’s trembling hands in hers and promises they will not be separated, no matter what… But when a children’s home offers refuge to Lotte, Hannah has no choice. To keep her sister safe, she has to let her go. And as she leaves Lotte weeping at the gates, she vows that one day they will be together again. Terrified and alone, Hannah is soon rescued by Michel, a charming Frenchman who welcomes her into his home.

Nathan West loved his wife Laura with all his heart. But now she’s gone, taken from him in a seemingly random act of violence. Laura was the glue that held their family together. And for Nathan, life without her feels almost meaningless. As he tries to find hope in the darkness, his three young daughters express their grief in different and challenging ways - with one set on a path of self-destruction that could devastate their family all over again.

Persephone is the youngest Penryn, and she’s always felt like an afterthought. As her siblings ventured out one by one, she was left behind, learning to rely on herself. Now that they’ve all returned and are on a mission to save their home, she’s reluctantly falling in with their plans and keeping her distance, especially when an Oxford-educated intern arrives wanting to learn how to save one’s ancestral home.

Libby Trent has worked hard to make a good life for herself. She has a happy, messy home in Virginia, full of family and laughter. And a job she’s enormously proud of at a charity helping the disadvantaged, that suits her strong sense of what’s right and wrong. But everything changes the day she’s contacted by a government official asking questions about a man named Hans Brenner, a Nazi who escaped Germany after the Second World War. A war criminal guilty of the most heinous deeds. And the man they suspect is Libby’s own father.

Rachel’s worst nightmare comes true when a rare auto-immune illness leaves 4-year-old daughter Emily in a coma the doctors say she may never come out of. And Rachel has to make a heartbreaking decision - one that her ex-husband, Emily’s dad James, doesn’t agree with. Terrified she’s going to lose her daughter for good, Rachel knows she must find a way to keep the hope alive for Emily. But there is only one person she can turn to for help to convince James - and it’s his new wife, Eva.

It’s been two years since Ellie and her family left their lives in America behind and moved to a small Welsh village to run her husband’s family inn. Having fought to save it from disrepair, Ellie is shocked when her sister-in-law, Sarah, breaks the news that the inn is facing financial trouble and might have to close after Christmas, a thought that breaks all their hearts.

When Sophie Weiss boards the SS St Louis, she has no reason to stay in Germany. The Nazis have taken everything from her, and her only hope is escape. But when she meets fellow Jewish refugees Rosa, Hannah and Rachel on board, the friendship they form gives Sophie hope that there can be happiness in her future, after all.

Quinn Freeman has spent his life avoiding the dangers of commitment, but his reluctant return to his home town that’s in tragedy for his family stirs up memories and emotions he’d intended to leave buried. His arrival lights hope in many hearts including one long dormant. Meghan O’Reilly, the town’s only plumber and solo caretaker of her dependent sister, is weighted down with responsibility. She only sees in Quinn a careless charmer who isn’t used to hard work - but she still can’t keep from imagining his kiss...and longing for his touch.

When a chance encounter takes Ellen Copley away from the beautiful island she has called home since she was orphaned as a child, she believes it is the new start she has been waiting for. She settles into an exciting, creative new life in Glasgow, feeling like she’s finally finding her independence. And even though she left a part of her heart back on the island, she’s flattered by the attentions of her handsome, charming benefactor, Henry McAvoy. But tragedy strikes their fledgling relationship, and soon after, war looms over Europe.

When Ava arrives in Greece, it’s with a heart that’s shattered into a thousand pieces. But as she pulls up in a tiny village nestled on a cliff above the glittering Ionian Sea and steps out in front of a tumbledown house that once belonged to her grandmother Sophia, everything changes. At first Ava almost wants to laugh at this bizarre inheritance - a home that has been uninhabited since the Second World War - that appears as close to collapse as she herself feels. But with nowhere left to run to, her only choice is to start putting the house together again.

The First World War is over, and those who have been fighting in Europe are heading for home, forever changed. Among the lost, the damaged, and the broken is former nurse Ellen Copley, who finds herself returning - not to her house in Glasgow, but to her childhood home on Amherst Island. There, she feels sure, in the warm embrace of the McCafferty family, with her beloved aunt Rose and her cousins, she will feel safe and loved. She will be able to escape the ghosts of the past and her loss and find peace.

When Laurel West discovers her estranged sister Abby has checked herself into rehab and wants her to take care of her 14-year-old son, she doesn’t hesitate to step in. Abby was there for Laurel a long time ago, and she longs to be able to offer the same. However, as a single woman who still dreams of the fairy tale, Laurel isn’t prepared for teenaged Zac’s sullen moods or silent rage. When he’s expelled from school, she decides to take drastic measures and temporarily relocate them to her great aunt’s cottage on the windswept hills of the Orkney islands north of Scotland?

England, 1939: When Alice marries twinkly-eyed, kind-hearted vicar David, it means leaving everything from her old life behind and moving into the draughty vicarage in the beautiful but remote village of Goswell, Cumbria. Though homesick, she's determined to make a new life there for herself and her husband. But soon tragedy strikes, and Alice is devastated when war breaks out and David chooses to sign up to fight. But everything changes when she's asked to take in a child evacuee, and she makes a promise to protect this girl, no matter what it costs her…

Boston, 1838: Once upon a time Isobel Moore was thought to be one of Boston’s most eligible young women. But, after a marriage proposal gone wrong, she is now at threat of being labelled a spinster. And, though her work at a small school for impoverished immigrants brings her great joy, she can’t help but wish for more in life. When her dream of finding love fails to come true, she knows - if she’s to have the family she dreams of - it will take desperate measures.

Germany, 1939: When Rachel Blau’s husband Franz is released from Dachau, she barely recognizes the man she married. But she knows in order to keep him safe they must leave the country they call home and pray a life far from the Nazis will heal him. Until he is better, she must be brave for both of them…

As I stare at the ultrasound, my eyes fill with tears. My husband squeezes my hand, thinking they are tears of happiness. How do I tell him they aren’t? When I meet the love of my life, Mark, I have everything I ever dreamed of. Our lives are perfect, until we find out I can’t give him the one thing he truly wants—a child. There is a small glimmer of hope. We could use a surrogate. But as the doctor explains that we can’t use my eggs, my heart breaks all over again.