Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in 20th Century

January 1945, Dachau, Germany. As the train rattles through the bright, snowy Bavarian countryside, the still beauty outside the window hides the terrible scenes inside the train, where men and women are packed together, cold and terrified. Jewish watchmaker Isaac Schüller can’t understand how he came to be here, and is certain he won’t be leaving alive.

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.

Nuneaton, 1935. Kathy has grown up at Treetops home for children, where Sunday and Tom Branning have always cared for her as one of their own. She enjoys her life at Treetops Manor, surrounded by her beloved horses, and with a future as a nurse ahead of her, she could wish for nothing more. Her foster sister Livvy is not as driven as Kathy. Sunday is keen to see both her girls married, but Livvy has no intentions of settling down and would much rather spend time with her friends. When Kathy falls for the wrong man, her ambitions are soon forgotten as she embarks on a secret affair.

Daniel Lohr, sensing that the Nazis are closing in on the Jews, leaves his dying father in Berlin and boards a ship to Shanghai. His passage is dependent upon him delivering a package to his shady uncle, his father’s brother, upon arrival. Daniel has no idea what the package contains. On board is Leah, also fleeing the Nazis. She and Daniel conduct a passionate but brief shipboard affair, but are separated as soon as the ship docks in Shanghai. Will he ever see her again?

England, 1941: Life has always been cruel to Ethel. Raised in an orphanage by a merciless mistress, she never knew the meaning of love. And now she has fallen for the one man who is forbidden to her - Karl, a German held captive in the local prisoner-of-war camp. He might be the enemy, but he has her heart. When Ethel discovers she’s pregnant, she is labelled a traitor and shunned by all. The love of her life is torn away from her, but she vows to protect their precious daughter. But the unthinkable happens....

France, 1944. Deep in the river valley of the Dordogne, in an old stone cottage on the edge of a beautiful village, three sisters long for the end of the war. Hélène, the eldest, is trying her hardest to steer her family to safety, even as the Nazi occupation becomes more threatening. Elise, the rebel, is determined to help the Resistance, whatever the cost. And Florence, the dreamer, just yearns for a world where France is free. Then, one dark night, the Allies come knocking for help.

Young, bookish Sylvia Beach knows there is no greater city in the world than Paris. But when she opens an English-language bookshop on the bohemian Left Bank, Sylvia can't yet know she is making history. Many leading writers of the day, from Ernest Hemingway to Gertrude Stein, consider Shakespeare and Company a second home. Here some of the most profound literary friendships blossom - and none more so than between James Joyce and Sylvia herself.

Two fathers, their sons and the feud that binds them. In the early years of the twentieth century, Billy and Tommy Smith are growing up on the mean streets of Sydney's Millers Point. It's a hungry, hard-scrabble life, made even worse when their violent father returns home from a long stint in prison. In the wealthy eastern suburbs, Charles Davies is living an entirely different life, the beneficiary of his father's business acumen and insatiable, unyielding greed. Charles wants for nothing - except perhaps his father's approval.

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.

Berlin Zoo, 1943: Ten-year-old Adelaide and her newborn sister are orphaned after a devastating night of bombing. Heartbroken and frightened, Adelaide runs to her mother’s closest friend, Katharina Heinroth, and the kind zookeeper takes the two little girls under her protection. As the bombing intensifies, Adelaide tries to shut out the horrors of war by caring for her tiny sister and playing with the adorable baby monkeys. But when Katharina organizes a dangerous operation to enable children and animals to escape the battle-scarred city, something goes wrong.

It's been two years since war broke out and the dangers of war are becoming ever more real for the Calvert-Lazenby family. With Raven Hall requisitioned as a maternity hospital, Rosina is rushed off her feet helping to care for the new young mothers and barely has the time to worry about young sergeant Harry who has been posted abroad. Until foreboding news arrives . . .

Spring, 1943. After a visit to see her mother in Sussex with Ned, it's time for VAD nurse Evie Jones to say a fond farewell to Rookery House and seek a new home in Great Plumstead. When an unusual opportunity arises, will it be all she hopes for? Marianne is visited by her husband's sister, stirring up bad memories from the past. Scared that Alex's family will once again try to take her young daughters away, Marianne vows to do all she can to keep them safe and living with her at Rookery House.

Single mother Sarah is guilt-ridden when an accident leaves her young daughter Melody seriously injured and their once music-filled lives silent. When she discovers her grandmother Rosalie's old war correspondence, she thinks she might have found a way to save her family, but it will require a leap of faith she isn't sure they are ready to take.

When her husband returns shell-shocked and broken from the Great War and his mother makes her life a misery, Betty Wellow discovers how bitter and hard life can truly be. But it is not until a devastating storm sweeps through their small fishing village and endangers her life that she sees her chance to escape - and takes it. Fleeing to Bristol, she changes her name to Mabel Brook and takes a position as a maid. But tragedy strikes once more after the sudden death of her mistress, and she is cast back onto the streets.

Cambridgeshire - March 1939. As the clouds of war begin to gather in Europe, the Talbot family of rural Blackberry Farm will be torn apart, just as so many families all over the world will be. Life will never be the same again. Whilst in London, the Salmons family will feel the pain of parting and loss. Brought together by war, the two families become intertwined and, as the outlook looks bleak, they must draw on each other’s strength to fight through the hard times.

When the Germans march into Denmark, Baron Henrik Ahlefeldt exchanges his nobility for anonymity, assuming a new identity so he can secretly row messages for the Danish Resistance across the waters to Sweden. American physicist Dr. Else Jensen refuses to leave Copenhagen and abandon her research-her life's dream. While printing resistance newspapers, she hears stories of the movement's legendary Havmand-the merman-and wonders if the mysterious and silent shipyard worker living in the same boardinghouse has something to hide.

Peacetime political manoeuvrings are threatening Kelly Maguire’s ambitions for captain’s rank. But the outbreak of war and the need for those who are willing to risk everything, changes all that. As World War II explodes around him and after a devastating loss in the Battle of Narvik, Maguire finds himself washed up at Dunkirk during the perilous evacuation of 1940. Once more he must prove his worth.

When Daisy, a paintress at the local pottery, looks out across Poole Harbour, waiting for the ‘little ships’ to bring the retreating soldiers home from Dunkirk, she prays her husband will be among them. But Alfie is declared missing, presumed dead, and Daisy must learn to live as a widow. Then a chance encounter with a French soldier throws Daisy’s life even further off course, with heartbreaking consequences that will span generations.

December 1943. As the war effort gathers steam in Europe, it's all hands on deck on the home front. Gloria is over the moon to be reunited with her sweetheart, Jack. But her sons, Bobby and Gordon, are away with the Navy and still know nothing of their mother's divorce and new half-sister. Rosie's squad of welders must work gruelling hours in the yard as they prepare for the Allied invasion of Normandy. All the while Rosie herself waits anxiously for news of her husband, Peter, who is carrying out dangerous work as an undercover operative in France.

Dover 1940 As firebombs fall on Dover, Edie Castle's life is thrown into turmoil when the garage where she lives and works is damaged and her beloved boss is arrested. With no job and nowhere else to go, Edie returns to Castle's Café and her formidable mother, Nellie. Living with her mother is never easy, but tensions reach boiling point when an old friend of Nellie's arrives looking for a place to stay. Meanwhile, desperate to clear her boss's name, Edie turns to his nephew for help.