Showing results by publisher "Macmillan Digital Audio" in Historical Fiction

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 the summer of 1965, and the streets of Queens, New York, shimmer in a heat wave. One July morning, Ruth Malone wakes to find a bedroom window wide open and her two young children missing. After a desperate search, the police make a horrifying discovery. Noting Ruth's perfectly made-up face and provocative clothing, the empty liquor bottles and love letters that litter her apartment, the detectives leap to convenient conclusions, fuelled by neighbourhood gossip and speculation.

Anna Buttterfield moves from her Suffolk country home to her uncle's house in London, to be introduced to society. A chance encounter with a local silk weaver, French immigrant Henri, throws her from her privileged upbringing to the darker, dangerous world of London's silk trade.

Now a major Sky TV series starring Benedict Cumberbatch. The once illustrious, once wealthy Melroses are in peril, and Patrick Melrose, now a husband and father, is trying to gather together the pieces of his life. Caught up in the turmoil of broken promises, assisted suicide, adultery and - most tender and terrifying of all - fatherhood, Patrick is still a long way from salvation, but even as the family struggles against the pull of its dark past, a new generation promises new light, new hope and - perhaps - the promise of a brighter future.

Thwarted in her desire to become a doctor like her brother, Robert, Pips Maitland rebels against her mother's wishes that she settle down and raise children. However, when Robert brings home a friend from medical school, Giles Kendall, it seems perhaps Pips might fall in love with an acceptable suitor after all. But the year is 1914, and the future is uncertain. Hearing that her father's friend, Dr John Hazelwood, is forming a flying ambulance corps to take to the front lines, Pips is determined to become one of its nurses and asks Alice Dawson, her maid, to go with her.

Edward Manners - 33 and disaffected - escapes to a Flemish city in search of a new life. Almost at once he falls in love with 17-year-old Luc and is introduced to the twilight world of the 1890s Belgian painter Edgard Orst.

3 BC. Two wild Germanic brothers, Armin and Wulf, are held hostage in Rome to keep their father from rebelling against the Empire. As the years pass, they are moulded into ideal soldiers: brave, disciplined, ruthless. Attributes that are to be tested when a conspiracy arises, threatening their emperor and the Empire’s future.... As serving Roman soldiers, the brothers are separated at opposite ends of the Empire, each proving their bloody might on the battlefield. 

Snowflakes in the Wind is a heartwarming story of triumph over adversity by Rita Bradshaw, author of the number one best-selling Dancing in the Moonlight. It's Christmas Eve 1920 when nine-year-old Abby Kirby's family is ripped apart by a terrible tragedy. Leaving everything she's ever known, Abby takes her younger brother and runs away to the tough existence of the border farming community.

It is 1914, and Eveleen Hardcastle, now in in her early thirties, has married Richard. As the First World War breaks out, Eveleen, a sophisticated young woman, is left to manage the factory while Richard goes off to fight for his country. Eveleen's mother Mary has found happiness at last in her marriage to Josh. Her young granddaughter, Bridie, still lives at home, and is beautiful, but has a spirited, strong will which her grandmother finds hard to control.

The saga that has enthralled the millions of fans of The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End now continues with Ken Follett's magnificent, gripping A Column of Fire. Christmas 1558, and young Ned Willard returns home to Kingsbridge to find his world has changed. The ancient stones of Kingsbridge Cathedral look down on a city torn by religious hatred. Europe is in turmoil as high principles clash bloodily with friendship, loyalty and love.

A crown can be won; blood cannot be changed. The Conqueror's Queen is the third title in Joanna Courtney's sweeping historical series, The Queens of Conquest. William of Normandy is a rough man, but what more can you expect of an illegitimate son trying to muscle his way into a dukedom? After a violent start to their courtship, Mathilda of Flanders discovers William to be a man of unexpected sensitivity.

Berlin in 1933 is in upheaval. Eleven-year-old Carla von Ulrich struggles to understand the tensions disrupting her family as Hitler strengthens his grip on Germany. Into this turmoil step her mother’s formidable friend and former British MP, Ethel Leckwith, and her student son, Lloyd, who soon learns for himself the brutal reality of Nazism. He also encounters a group of Germans resolved to oppose Hitler - but are they willing to go so far as to betray their country?

Auschwitz, 1944. Alfred Mendl's days are numbered. But he has little left to live for - his family were torn away from him, his life's work burned in front of his eyes - until a glimmer of hope arises as he watches a game of chess. To the guards Mendl is just another prisoner, but in fact he holds knowledge that only two people in the world possess. The other is working hard for the Nazi war machine. Four thousand miles away, in Washington, DC, intelligence lieutenant Nathan Blum decodes messages from occupied Poland.

On an unseasonably warm autumn day, an American teacher enters a public bathroom beneath Sofia's National Palace of Culture. There he meets Mitko, a charismatic young hustler, and pays him for sex. He returns to Mitko again and again over the next few months, their relationship growing increasingly intimate and unnerving. As he struggles to reconcile his longing with the anguish it creates, he's forced to grapple with his own fraught history.

Fun-loving Maisie is devoted to her young family and her work at Woolworths. But her happy life with her RAF officer husband and their baby daughter leads her to think of the family she left behind. With the war now into its fourth year, what will she find when she sets about searching for them? Sarah and her husband, Alan, are blissfully happy and long for a sibling for their daughter. But dark days lie ahead for this close family.

Will the war be over by Christmas? As the war moves into 1945, the lives of the women of Woolworths continue. When store manager Betty Billington announces she is expecting Douglas’ baby, her future life is about to change more than she expects. Freda has fallen in love with the handsome Scottish engineer, but will it end happily? Maisie loves being a mother and also caring for her two nieces, although she still has her own dreams. When her brother appears on the scene, he brings unexpected danger to the family.

Emma Brown is a happy-go-lucky child, content to work hard at school, and to play hopscotch with her friends on the pavement outside her house in the run-down Nechells area of Birmingham. As long as everything is all right at home with her Ma and Pa, her little sister Joyce and brother Sid, then life is good. But after Em's mother, Cynthia, has her baby she just doesn't seem to be able to cope.

Best friends Sarah, Maisie and Freda are brought together by their jobs at Woolworths. With their loved ones away on the front line, their bonds of friendship strengthen each day. Betty Billington is the manager at Woolworths and a rock for the girls, having given up on love...until a mysterious stranger turns up one day - could he reignite a spark in Betty?

Emily Ryan has gone up in the world since her arrival in Sheffield. Brought there by her mother's ambitious schemes for her brother, Josh, she had found work as a buffer girl polishing cutlery for the city's famous trade. With the help of a friend, Nell, Emily eventually set up her own buffing business, employing those with whom she had once worked. Married to Thomas Trippet - Trip to his friends - they plan to build a life together, but when Lucy, Nell's daughter, disappears, it seems that the menace from the past is never very far away.

Born with a club foot in a remote village in the Pennines, Ruth is feared and ridiculed by her superstitious neighbours, who see her affliction as a sign of witchcraft. When her father is killed in an accident and her family evicted from their cottage, she hopes to leave her old life behind, to start afresh in the Blackburn cotton mills. But tragedy strikes once again, setting in motion a chain of events that will unravel her family's lives.