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

London, 1935. Ruby is always hungry, but she will go without if it means her young brothers can eat. 1930s Bermondsey might be called the larder of London, with its pie, pickle and jam factories, but for the poor working classes, starvation is often only a heartbeat away. When Ruby's neighbour suggests she ought to go to the Methodist Mission for free food, Ruby knows her father will be furious, but she has no other option.

Hattie finds herself relegated to the factory floor on her return from the war. Her workmates are unforgiving at Hattie's attempt to raise herself up, and she is soon ostracised. After journeying to Australia to marry her husband, Clara is betrayed and returns penniless, homeless and trying to raise a child alone. Lou's daughter and parents are killed by a bomb blast. By day she works at the factory; by night she roams the bomb sites, half mad with grief. These women forge a bond that will ultimately allow them to find hope.

India, 1816. Fresh from the field of Waterloo, Matthew Hervey is dispatched on a mission of the utmost secrecy. Leaving behind his fiancée, Lady Henrietta Lindsey, he must journey across tempestuous seas to India, an alien, exotic and beguiling land that will test his mettle to the very limit. For the princely state of Chintal is threatened both by intrigue from within and military might from without, and Hervey - sabre in hand - finds he is once more destined for the field of battle....

With its winding high street lined with a greengrocer, post office, pub and church, Melstead St Mary is the perfect English village. Neighbours look out for neighbours, and few things trouble the serene surface of the community. But when residents start to receive anonymous letters containing secret information about their pasts - secrets that no one else is meant to know - life in Melstead St Mary is about to change, possibly forever....

Summer is coming to the four streets - but so is trouble, especially for its redoubtable women, who've struggled through a bitter winter to put food on the table. Peggy Nolan, with seven boys and a husband too lazy to work, has hit rock bottom and is hiding a terrible secret. Maura and Tommy Doherty always looked out for any neighbour in trouble, especially Peggy, but they're far away, running a pub in Ireland and corrupt copper, Frank the Skank, is moving into their old house on the four streets. Can anything bring them home in time?

As London goes up in flames during the Blitz, two sisters from Bermondsey find their lives changed out of all recognition.... When a bombing raid destroys nearly everything she holds dear, May joins the ATS and becomes a gunner girl. Peggy, May's elder sister, is trapped in a stifling marriage, yet amid the chaos of war, a route to freedom beckons. From war will come hardship and tragedy as well as new, unexpected friendships and love affairs.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It is not long before they learn that the friary in which they are staying is not the safe haven they imagine - one guest has already been murdered. It soon emerges that the dead man was holding the Hugh Chalice, a Lincoln relic with a curiously bloody history. Bartholomew and Michael are soon drawn into a web of murder, lies and suspicion in a city where neither knows who can be trusted.

Liverpool, 1951: Dora Rodgers is settling into a new life with her daughters Carol and Jackie, moving on from the betrayal of her husband. But then an unexpected knock at the door rips her family in two. Carol is taken away by a welfare officer to live with Dora's estranged husband, Joe. Dora is determined to fight for her child, but she struggles to cope when shocking news from Joe breaks her heart once more.

Operation Anglo, 31 August 1942. Beneath the waves, HMS Traveller closes in on the coast of Rhodes in the Eastern Mediterranean. Aboard, eight SBS commandos check their weapons and munitions as they prepare to infiltrate and sabotage two Axis bomber fields. That part of their mission will be a success... but only two of the eight commandos will make it back to the submarine. Ex-Black Watch Sgt Jim Hunter will be one of the lucky ones, but what he will face next will make Operation Anglo look like a cakewalk.

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.

In the depths of the desert on the empire's Eastern Frontier, the Roman army lays siege to the city of Nicopolis. Estranged from his beloved Enica to keep her safe, centurion Flavius Ferox has secured his freedom after being framed once again. His next quest: to uncover traitors within the Roman ranks. As the siege builds, widespread corruption seethes and soldiers are murdered in cold blood. Meanwhile, Ferox's investigation brings him closer and closer to the imperial court, and uncovers connections to Hadrian himself...

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.

Pearl Street, Liverpool, Christmas 1942. Despite the drama and tragedy of the War, the street’s spirit and friendship in adversity binds them together. Since her husband was injured, Eileen has worried about the growing distance between them. Lena Newton longs for a baby but with her husband posted in the Navy, it's looking unlikely. And Kitty has hidden away since she discovered her lover was married, too ashamed to return in disgrace with her baby.

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.

1940: Dover waits for the Nazi invasion… but what if Hitler's agents are already here, among them? Canadian journalist Jessica Marshall is reporting from Dover as the town is on the brink of a German invasion. But her story never makes it into the paper… Meanwhile, Louis Renard, an intelligent, damaged man and onetime Scotland Yard murder detective, is recuperating from wounds received in the Dunkirk invasion, working in Dover's barely functioning police station.

A new killer is stalking the streets of London’s East End. Though newspapers have dubbed him 'the Torso Killer’, this murderer’s work is overshadowed by the hysteria surrounding Jack the Ripper’s Whitechapel crimes. The victims are women too, but their dismembered bodies, wrapped in rags and tied up with string, are pulled out of the Thames - and the heads are missing….