The Throwaway Children

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?

The war is over, but trouble is brewing.... Wynsdown, 1949. In the small Somerset village of Wynsdown, Charlotte Shepherd is happily married and now feels settled in her adopted home after arriving from Germany on the Kindertransport as a child during the war. Meanwhile, the squire's fighter pilot son, Felix, has returned to the village with a fiancée in tow. Daphne is beautiful, charming...and harbouring secrets. After meeting during the war, Felix knows some of Daphne's past....

Dartmouth Circle is quiet and exclusive - just the way its residents want it to stay, especially arch busybody Sheila Colby. When she hears that the house next door to her has been bought for a student and four friends to rent, she is incandescent. Nothing in this outwardly serene little cul-de-sac is quite as it seems - will the arrival of Madeleine 'Mad' Richmond and her friends bring seething tensions and dark secrets bubbling to the surface?

New York socialite Caroline Ferriday has her hands full with her post at the French consulate and a new love on the horizon. But Caroline's world is forever changed when Hitler's army invades Poland in September 1939 - and then sets its sights on France. An ocean away from Caroline, Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish teenager, senses her carefree youth disappearing as she is drawn deeper into her role as courier for the underground resistance movement.

In 1786 a fisherman's daughter from Cornwall called Mary Broad was sentenced to be hanged for theft. But her sentence was commuted, and she was transported to Australia, one of the first convicts to arrive there. How Mary escaped the harsh existence of the colony and found true love, and how she was captured and taken back to London in chains, only to be released after a trial where she was defended by no less than James Boswell, is one of the most gripping and moving stories of human endeavour (based on an amazing true story) you will ever listen to.

Queenie Bonner is only two when she is taken from her large family in the slums to a big house in the country. Frightened and confused, she yearns for her nine brothers and sisters, especially her favourite brother, Harry. Albert and Mary Warrender rename her Eleanor, bringing her up as their own, and as time passes, Ellie forgets about her other family.

It is 1953, and five girls are arriving to start their training at St Angelus Hospital. Dana has escaped from her family farm in Ireland. Victoria is running away from an aristocratic background. Beth is an army brat and throws her lot in with bitchy Celia Forsyth, and Pammy has come from the wrong side of the tracks. When an unknown girl is admitted after a botched backstreet abortion, a tragedy begins to unfold which will rock the world of St Angelus to its foundations.

Without a mother, Rosie is at the mercy of her father and thuggish brothers. Then one day a friend comes to the farm in the form of cockney housekeeper Heather Farley. But soon enough Heather vanishes, abandoning Rosie to her fate. Only when Thomas Farley comes to find his sister several years later does Rosie learn the terrible truth about Heather - and her family. Running away from home, she finds herself pursued by the man who brought ruin on her family. Is he out to get her, too? Or could he have some other reason for chasing her?

Three sisters in 1920s struggle to make ends meet and protect their mother from their violent father. Milly works in Southwells jam factory. Elsie dreams of a career on the stage, while little Amy runs wild with her friends. All three of the girls fear the unforgiving temper of their father and their courageous attempts to protect their defenseless mother will have dramatic, disastrous consequences for them all.

When Ruby and Verity met as girls, they came from different worlds. Verity was privately educated, living in a beautiful Hampstead home, while Ruby was being raised in extreme poverty. Nevertheless, they became firm friends. However, fortunes are not set in stone, and soon the girls find their situations reversed. As Ruby goes up in the world, Verity encounters more and more tragedy, but still the girls remain a large part of each other's lives.

They call them the custard tarts - the girls who work at Pearce Duff's custard powder factory in Bermondsey before the First World War. Conditions are hard but nothing can quench the spirit of humour and friendship. But the shadow of the coming war looms over them; it will pull London's East End together as never before - even while it tears the world apart.

She is a servant girl... When her father becomes ill, Emily Carter finds herself sent into service at Priorsfield Manor in order to provide the family with an income. He will be the Lord of the Manor... Emily strikes up an unlikely friendship with the daughters of the house, as well as Nicolas, son of the Earl. But as the threat of war comes ever closer, she becomes even more aware of the vast differences between upstairs and downstairs, servant and master...If you like Downton Abbey you’ll love this!

Scotland, 1995. On the hills of Cornton Vale Prison. She was convicted of killing her best friend.... Laura Brannigan has been put away for murder. She insists that she didn't kill Jackie. But her search for true justice seems futile. Then she receives a letter that takes her back to her youth and the memory of an old love, Stuart....

Ruth has returned to Edinburgh after many years of exile, left rootless by the end of her marriage and career and now the death of her father, from whom she had long been estranged. She is faced with the daunting task of clearing his house, believing he had removed all traces of her mother. Yet hidden away in a barely used top-floor room, she finds he had secretly kept a cupboard full of her possessions. Sifting through the ancient papers, Ruth discovers the diary and letters written by her ancestor from the 18th century, Thomas Erskine.

When Lucy's parents are killed in a train crash, her kindly uncle steps in to look after the little girl - to the initial apprehension of his wife and her son. However, Lucy's sweet, spirited charm slowly wins over her new family, and as she overcomes the trauma of her childhood, she grows up inspired to become a doctor, just like her father. But studying medicine in London takes Lucy far from her home in Hull and the people she loves, and she has to battle to be accepted in a man's world.