Showing titles in 20th Century

Essex, 1916. Lily is a housemaid up at St Clere's Hall. But times are changing with the outbreak of war. With a husband bent on signing up for the trenches and a lecherous master of the house, Lily is forced to leave. Doing her bit for the war effort - and bringing in more money for the family - Lily goes to work in a factory making explosives to send to the trenches. It's a hard job. The munitionettes must face terrible working conditions, the constant danger of accidents and air strikes and a patronising, self-serving boss.

1966: In London, Jackie Collins’s racy The World is Full of Married Men hits bookshops and launches her career. In New York, Jacqueline Susann’s debut novel Valley of the Dolls is published, and she’s desperate for it to be a bestseller. But neither author is prepared for the price they will pay for begin women who dare to write about sex.

A great building boom spread across America in the 1920s and the Fawcett Construction Company of New York has many projects in the pipeline. Carol Berkley, private secretary to the company's president, keeps track of them all and is particularly concerned about the lack of progress in a building out west. When two men who appear to have something to do with the project arrive to talk to her boss, she overhears them discussing plans to swindle the company. Their scheme is to share the spoils with the project's engineer, Philip Duskin.

Meet Me at Rainbow Corner follows the lives of Dot, Lilly and their friends, as they dance the nights away, fall in and out of love, and navigate the horrors of war. Lilly goes on a secret mission with her Colonel to France, and Dot becomes pregnant and returns to Liverpool. When the war is over, they are reunited, having travelled by boat to the US with countless other war brides to meet their repatriated fiancés again. Along the way, they uncover a case of inside espionage and learn the true meaning of love.

From Tiffany Reisz, the international best-selling storyteller behind The Bourbon Thief and the Original Sinners series, comes an enthralling new novel about a woman swept away by the tides who awakens to find herself in 1921, reunited with the husband she's been mourning for four years. Fans of Kate Morton and Diana Gabaldon will fall in love with the mystery, romance, and beauty of an isolated South Carolina lighthouse where a power greater than love works its magic.

When Kerensa is sent by her father’s auction house to catalogue a neglected house overlooking the sea in Newlyn, Cornwall, it’s a welcome escape. Once the home of two female artists, Harbour House is a treasure trove, but one painting in particular catches Kerensa’s eye – a hypnotically sensual portrait of a beautiful young woman which dominates the hallway.

Sara's employer sends her to work as temporary secretary to his cousin, Greg Camden. But the master of Ransome station has little time for his new secretary. Meanwhile, the beautiful and sophisticated Julia has no problem getting Greg's attention. Through hard work Sara shows Greg how indispensable she is. But she is shocked when he suddenly proposes a marriage of convenience. Will the arrangement be enough for a young girl with romantic dreams? And how will Julia react to their union?

When Olivia Sheridan arrives in the Whitsundays as spokesperson for a big mining company, it should be a straightforward presentation to the town about their proposed project. But when a handsome local fisherman shows her what ecological impact the proposal will have, Olivia is forced to question her father's motives for the scheme. Struggling with newly divided loyalties, Olivia is thrown further into turmoil when she is mistaken for a woman who disappeared more than 60 years before.

It’s opening night. The stage is set, the houselights have dimmed, and the handsome male lead is waiting. This is your time. Your chance to prove you are so much more than the understudy. You have worked so hard and would have done almost anything to get here. But not what they are accusing you of - never that. It’s simply bad luck that Australia’s darling of opera has gone missing, throwing the spotlight on you just as the whole world is watching history in the making. But the show must go on, and it’s all down to you.

Kitty has escaped her family home in England to join an international brigade of fighters high up on the snow-covered Spanish borders, determined to lead an effective fight against the growing Fascist forces sweeping across Spain. In Oxford, Grace has embarked on a new posting, working with two medical scientists—one Australian, one a German refugee—on the brink of a great discovery that will impact a life-changing treatment for infection. But for now, they need to keep their findings away from the envious eyes of Nazi extremists.

In 1943, Private Clay Paxton trains hard with the US Army Rangers at Camp Forrest, Tennessee, determined to do his best in the upcoming Allied invasion of France. With his future stolen by his brothers' betrayal, Clay has only one thing to live for - fulfilling the recurring dream of his death. Leah Jones works as a librarian at Camp Forrest, longing to rise above her orphanage upbringing and belong to the community, even as she uses her spare time to search for her real family - the baby sisters she was separated from so long ago.

Alice Pendelbury believes everything in her life is pretty much in order - from her good friends to her burgeoning career. But even Alice has to admit it’s been an odd week. Not only has her belligerent neighbor, Mr. Daldry, suddenly become a surprisingly agreeable confidant, but he’s encouraging her to take seriously the fortune-teller who told her that only by traveling to Turkey can Alice meet the most important person in her life. What’s more, the peculiarly insistent Mr. Daldry has even agreed to finance Alice’s trip - one that against all reason seems to be predestined.

1970s Mexico City: while student protests and political unrest consume the city, Maite escapes from her humdrum life in the stories of passion and danger that fill the latest issue of Secret Romance. She is deeply envious of her neighbour, Leonora, a beautiful art student who lives the life of excitement and intrigue Maite craves - so when she disappears under suspicious circumstances, Maite jumps at the chance to uncover Leonora's secrets. Maite is not the only one searching for the missing girl.

Marrakech 1966. Vicky Baudin steps onto a train winding through Morocco, looking for the grandmother she has never met. It’s an epic journey that’ll take her to the edge of Atlas Mountains – and closer to the answers she’s been craving all her life. But dark secrets whisper amongst the dunes. And in unlocking the mystery of Clemence’s past, Vicky will unearth great danger too.

As one of the Navy’s most skilled mapmakers, Merry knows the very lives of men far away depend on her work in the War Office. But when a family crisis draws her back to her beloved Cornwall, Merry finds herself working alongside an enigmatic American officer on secret operations spanning the rugged coasts of Cornwall and Brittany which she knows so well. But not everything is as clear as the maps she draws. As rumours and suspicion swirl around her family, Merry is increasingly drawn to Jake, despite the defences she’s built around her heart.

1942, Manchester. World War II is in full swing, and Lily Mullins is determined to do her bit for the war effort. Her friends and sweetheart have all joined up, and Lily's sure there must be a role for her that goes further than knitting socks for the troops! When she decides to volunteer for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, Lily soon discovers that she has a talent as a wireless operator. Helped along the way by a special gang of girls, she finds strengths she didn't know she had and realises that the safety of the country might just be in her hands....

As death and destruction fall from the skies day after day in the London Blitz, Australian ambulance driver Lily Brennan confronts the horror with bravery, intelligence, common sense and humour. Although she must rely upon her colleagues to carry out her dangerous duties, Lily begins to suspect that someone at her ambulance station may be giving assistance to the enemy by disclosing secret information.

We truly loved reading this beautiful, simple novel in one sitting.' ELLE The bestselling phenomenon from France Smita, Giulia, Sarah: three lives, three continents, three women with nothing in common, but nevertheless bound by a rare expression of courage – like three strands in a braid...

When the bombers appear like a flock of birds over the horizon, Sibil Helinger, 17, is enjoying market day in the small Spanish town of Guernica. With no warning, clouds of German planes are upon them and bombs fall on the town like rain. Reeling with shock, Sibil spends the next few days frantically searching for her relatives in the smouldering rubble. Though she finds her little sister trapped in the ruins, she discovers her mother and the others are dead.

When the ill-fated maiden voyage of the Titanic leaves thirteen-year-old Olivia Davenport orphaned, she’s sent to live with her guardians, the Fairchilds, in their huge Jacobean mansion – Merriford Manor. But the Fairchilds have more to worry about than a grieving young girl – with war in Europe imminent and four sons to protect. Olivia feels alone and friendless. That is, until she hears a voice from behind the wall in her tower bedroom.