Showing titles in 20th Century

All is not well at Castle's Café. Since the fatal shooting, customers have been staying away, and now Nellie finds herself in debt to the sinister Terence Carter. But when a deadly attack strikes close to home, these troubles pale into insignificance. Meanwhile, Jimmy Castle's relationship with family friend Reenie Turner has deepened, and in the aftermath of the attack that could so easily have killed them, they decide to get married. But the return of an old friend threatens to expose a long-held secret, leaving the wedding teetering on the brink of disaster.

Auschwitz, 1942: This unforgettable novel, based on a true story, brings to life history’s most powerful tale of forbidden love. Set within the barbed wire of Auschwitz, a man and a woman fall in love against unimaginable odds. What happens next will restore your faith in humanity and make you believe in hope even where hope should not exist.

1942. Alex Wolff’s goal is Cairo. Following a relentless trek across the scorching Sahara, he arrives in the city with a copy of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, a lethal blade and a trail of bodies in his wake. Known to his handlers as the ‘Sphinx’, Wolff is a Nazi spy with a brutal desire to succeed.

Beautiful Stella, the head-turning cook of a munitions factory, has been swept off her feet by a handsome GI. He proposes when she falls pregnant, but soon his letters stop arriving . . . Then there is Lillian, who is deeply unimpressed when she is conscripted as a Land Girl miles from her home, but then she meets a charming, married vet . . . Meanwhile, midwife Ada is getting used to being back at work after the birth of her own beautiful baby girl. But she faces the biggest challenge of her life when the home is engulfed in an outbreak of whooping cough.

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.

Born into privilege to one of the last Ottoman pashas, beautiful, spirited Selva is the brightest jewel in her father’s household - until she falls in love with Rafael Alfandari. Though Turkey has long been a safe haven for Jews, marriage between a high-ranking Muslim girl and a Jewish boy is strictly forbidden. Yet young love will not be denied, and Selva and Rafael defy their parents and marry, fleeing to Paris in hopes of a better life - only to find themselves trapped in the path of the invading Nazis.

London, 1940. Bombs fall and Josie Banks’ world crumbles around her. Her overbearing husband, Stan, is unreachable, called to service. Her home, a ruin of rubble and ash. Josie’s beloved tearoom boss has been killed, and Josie herself is injured, with nothing left and nowhere to go. Evacuated to the English countryside, Josie ends up at the estate of the aristocratic Miss Harcourt, a reluctant host to the survivors of the Blitz. Now a threat looms larger than anyone imagined. And a dangerous secret is about to upend Josie’s life again.

One morning while passing through Grand Central Terminal on her way to work, Grace Healey finds an abandoned suitcase tucked beneath a bench. Unable to resist her own curiosity, Grace opens the suitcase, where she discovers a dozen photographs - each of a different woman. In a moment of impulse, Grace takes the photographs and quickly leaves the station. Grace soon learns that the suitcase belonged to a woman named Eleanor Trigg, leader of a network of female secret agents who were deployed out of London during the war.

1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters and girls sell dances for a shilling a time. The notorious queen of this glittering world is Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies and Nellie's empire faces threats from without and within.

Bristol 1938. A shadowy presence overshadows Coronation Close, watching and waiting. Jenny Crawford is the first to notice the stranger and wonders why his attention is fixed on Thelma Dawson’s house. When challenged he makes a hasty retreat. Meanwhile Thelma is having trouble with her precocious daughter Mary who is about to leave school and start work. Mary considers herself an adult but to Thelma she’s still a little girl; an attitude resented by her daughter.

Sicily, 1943. Three American women, all nurses in the Medical Air Evacuation Transport Squadron, are determined to do all they can for their country. Vita is fun-loving, Dot shy and sweet-natured, and Evelyn practical and determined, but for all their differences, a life of military service pulls the three together as firm friends. When they’re selected for a daring mission, the women are proud to play their part. But disaster strikes when their plane crash-lands behind enemy lines in occupied Albania. finally find their way home?

Monica Tsai spends most days on her computer coding for a program that seeks to connect strangers online. A self-confessed recluse, she finds herself escaping into a digital world, counting the days until she can return home to her beloved grandparents. Now in their nineties, Monica worries about them—especially her grandmother Yun whose memory has begun to fade. Monica has become intent on tracking down the long-lost cousin Meng that her grandmother was separated from back in China before it’s too late.

Following the death of her mother, Becky begins the sad task of sorting through her empty flat. Starting with the letters piling up on the doormat, she finds an envelope post-marked from Cornwall. In it is a letter that will change her life forever. A desperate plea from her mother's elderly cousin, Olivia, to help save her beloved home. Becky arrives at Chynalls to find the beautiful old house crumbling into the ground and Olivia stuck in hospital with no hope of being discharged until her home is made habitable.

Italy, 1937. In a tiny village in rural Lombardy, Graziella Ponti is born into a loving family. Though they are not rich and life is full of challenges, Graziella and her family are content and safe, surrounded by the tightly knit community of Pieve Santa Clara. But when the shadow of World War Two falls across the village with the arrival of Nazi soldiers, nothing in young Graziella’s life will ever be the same again.

London, 1940. Emmeline Lake and her best friend, Bunty, are trying to stay cheerful despite the Luftwaffe making life thoroughly annoying for everyone. Emmy dreams of becoming a Lady War Correspondent, and when she spots a job advertisement in the newspaper she seizes her chance - but after a rather unfortunate misunderstanding, she finds herself typing letters for the formidable Henrietta Bird, the renowned agony aunt of Woman's Friend magazine.

It’s 1947. The world continues to grapple with the fallout of the Second World War, and former war reporter Billie Walker is finding her feet as an investigator. When a wealthy client hires Billie and her assistant Sam to track down her missing husband, the trail leads Billie back to London and Paris, where Billie’s own painful memories also lurk. Jack Rake, Billie’s wartime lover and, briefly, husband, is just one of the millions of people who went missing in Europe during the war. What was his fate after they left Paris together?

Only one man can foil a plot set to change the course of history.... Ex-SAS soldier Ben Hope is enjoying life at Le Val, the facility in Northern France where he trains others in the dangerous art of hostage rescue, until a chance incident forces him to take on the role of bodyguard to the Swiss billionaire Maximilian Steiner. The victim of a recent abduction attempt, Steiner believes that a neo-Nazi terror group are bent on seizing a prized document from his personal collection.

April, 1945. As the Americans storm the Buchenwald concentration camp, among the survivors are Jakob and Emmanuelle, barely more than teenagers. Each of them has lost everything and everyone in the unspeakable horrors of the war. But when they meet, they find hope and comfort in each other. They marry and build a happy, prosperous life for themselves and their new family, but their pasts cast a long shadow over the present....

USS Bull Shark is running for Pearl Harbor after leaving New London and her victory over the Nazi Q-ship, but all is not well aboard the boat. The Japanese are planning a major offensive and the clock is rapidly ticking – with what will become one of the most decisive battles of the war looming on the horizon, the Navy still doesn’t know exactly where or when it’s going to happen. Can Bull Shark play her part in the Battle of Midway? Or will she meet with Yamamoto’s secret weapon and be swept aside in Japan’s quest for power?

The isolated Monkshill Park boarding school seems a world away from the violence that has engulfed Europe. Yet its eerie ground have witnessed a murder. Annabel Warnock, a teacher with a checkered past, disappeared during the holidays. The teachers and girls assume she has left the school, but the truth is quite different. Her body is lying at the bottom of the Maiden’s Leap, along the dangerous and overgrown Gothic Walk. Annabel’s ghost is trapped at Monkshill, unable to move on whilst the mystery of hear death remains unsolved.