Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Literature & Fiction

It is two years before the outbreak of World War 1, and the Oakley family are typical of their time. Andrew has been clerk at a City solicitors for twenty years. Alice, his wife, keeps the home fires burning. Their sons plan on becoming skilled apprentices. And Mabel, their daughter, says she would rather die than go into domestic service like her cousin. She is going to go to train as a secretary. Andrew Oakley little imagines, as he sets off for work one February morning, that their lives are about to change in the most dramatic and tragic fashion.

The Palazzo Colombina is home to the Uccello family: three generations of men, trapped together in the dusty palace on Venice's Grand Canal. Awkward 15-year-old Nico. His distant, business-focused father. And his beloved grandfather, Paolo. Paolo is dying. But before he passes, he has secrets he's waited his whole life to share.

They shot everyone. His friends, his colleagues, the woman he loved. But they made one critical mistake. They didn’t shoot him. Detective Sergeant Mark ‘Heck’ Heckenburg has a reputation for bending the rules, but when a ruthless gun attack on a North London pub leaves 26 of his closest workmates dead, he throws the rulebook away. Devastated beyond recovery, he goes rogue.

A body is discovered with her throat cut and her daughter believed missing. DCI Foster quickly sees parallels with the disappearance of a teenager three years earlier. With hopes fading, he calls on genealogist Nigel Barnes to piece together the links between the families of the two girls. The trail leads back to 1890, and a young couple fleeing a terrible crime in their past....

In May 1937, a man in his early 30s waits by the lift of a Leningrad apartment block. He waits all through the night, expecting to be taken away to the Big House. Any celebrity he has known in the previous decade is no use to him now, and few who are taken to the Big House ever return.

Britannia, AD 117: Roman centurion Flavius Ferox is trying to live a quiet life of dignified leisure, overseeing his wife's estate and doing his best to resist the urge to murder an annoying neighbor—until someone else does it for him. Dragged back into a life of violence, Ferox finds himself chasing raiders, fighting chieftains and negotiating with kings, journeying far into the north just as war breaks out. With the new emperor, Hadrian, sending agents from Rome, the whole world seems to be changing.

Luke Livingstone is a respected solicitor, a father and grandfather, a pillar of the community. Yet Luke is struggling with an unbearable secret, and it's threatening to destroy him. All his life, Luke has hidden the truth about himself and his identity. It's a truth so fundamental that it will shatter his family and leave him outcast. But to continue living, he must become the person - the woman - he knows himself to be, whatever the cost.

Robert Finlay is looking forward to returning to uniform policing and a less stressful life. But fate has other plans. Finlay's traumatic past is about to return to haunt him. A policeman is killed by a bomb blast, and a second is gunned down; both were former army colleagues from Finlay's own SAS regiment. And so begins a game of cat and mouse, a wicked game in which Finlay is in embroiled in a fight against a determined and unidentified enemy.

Berlin, 1933. Aspiring actress Clara Vine arrives in Berlin to find work at the famous Ufa studios. Through a chance meeting, she is unwillingly drawn into a circle of Nazi wives, led by Magda Goebbels. British Intelligence officer Leo Quinn sees Clara as the perfect recruit to spy on her new elite friends. But then Magda reveals to Clara a dramatic secret and entrusts her with an extraordinary mission.

Romilly had worked hard for her stunning house in one of Bristol's most fashionable suburbs. She adored her daughter and handsome husband, and sure, life was sometimes exhausting - but nothing that a large glass of wine couldn't fix. But then, as deep-buried insecurities surfaced, everything started to unravel. A glass of wine became a bottle; one bottle became two. Once, Romilly's family were everything to her. Now, after years of hiding the drinking, she must finally admit that she has found another love....

Wilhelm von Tore is dying. As he looks back on his life he reflects on his upbringing in Dresden, his beloved grandmother and his medical career during the second world war. But mostly he remembers his darling Luci, the great love of his life, his dark-haired beauty promised to him in a dream years before they met. Though only together for a few months in her first life, their love is written in the stars. Using scientific research compiled over decades, Wilhelm ensures that, for him and his beloved, death is only the beginning.

In the glitteringly ruthless diamond business, Scarlett Drummond Murray is a force to be reckoned with. As stunningly beautiful as the diamonds she works with, Scarlett is determined to make her mark on the industry with her fabulous jewellery creations. But to do so she must battle through a world that is steeped in greed and corruption.

Through world wars and civil strife, the Bangor Express has never missed an issue, but now it is losing money, and Rob Cullen has absolutely no idea that he's the man to save it. It's been a long time since Rob had a real story to get his teeth into...just as well then that he can rely on the Express crew to back him up. They're like a family. A dysfunctional, highly unpopular and poverty-stricken family.

Two different worlds collide when Luke Kiernan wakes up in hospital to find the man he’s hated since childhood at his bedside. Past deceits and dark family secrets are unearthed, and with them the promise of a fresh start with two women who are intent on helping Luke and his father mend their lives.

Neva Friezland is born into a world of trickery and illusion, where fortunes can be won and lost on the turn of a card. She is also born with an extraordinary gift. She can predict the weather. In Regency England, where the proper goal for a gentlewoman is marriage and only God knows the weather this is dangerous. It is also potentially very lucrative.

Ashcombe was the most beautiful house Saskia had ever seen as a little girl, providing a perfect sanctuary to hide from the tragedy which shattered her childhood. Now an adult, Saskia is still living at Ashcombe and, as a book restorer ,devotes her days tending to broken, battered books. When she discovers a notebook carefully concealed in an old Bible, Saskia finds herself drawn into a heart-rending tale of wartime love....

Spring has arrived at The Potting Shed and things seem to finally be going Maddie's way. Her relationship with lovable lawyer Ed is going well and the business is thriving with the help of her new friend Jo and his bright orange coffee van. But troubles are just around the corner... the upgrade of The Potting Shed from a nursery to a garden centre is at a critical point, turning part of Maddie's business into a building site. And just as she has to temporarily move out of her home, a major garden centre announces its grand opening only twenty miles away.

Sarah Churchwell examines one of the most enduringly popular stories of all time, Gone with the Wind, to help explain the divisions ripping the United States apart today. Separating fact from fiction, she shows how histories of mythmaking have informed America's racial and gender politics, the controversies over Confederate statues, the resurgence of white nationalism, the Black Lives Matter movement, the enduring power of the American Dream, and the violence of Trumpism.

Jodie and Harper are destined to be on the West End stage side by side. They've lived and worked on that dream all their lives but, in a split second, their world divides. Harper is left disabled after a black taxi ploughs into her and Jodie has to return to her stage career alone. After the accident, the doctors tell Harper she will live, but she'll be a wheelchair user. Jodie vows to never leave her side, but Harper knows that's not what she needs.

Devon, 1867. Free-spirited Rebecca Westbrook recognizes her perfect match when she sees him. His name is Captain Adam Bradley. She is the harbour master's daughter. He is smouldering and sophisticated — the most eligible captain ever to sail into the quay. Anyone can see it's meant to be. But Rebecca is anything but charmed. Her heart belongs to Tom Mason, a lowly cooper she's known forever. Her father doubts Tom's ability to provide securely for her. But Tom has a plan to prove him wrong. And until then, passionate Rebecca refuses to wait to be with him. But fate has other plans.