Showing results by narrator "Anne Dover" in All Categories

From the acclaimed author of The Last Pearl and Dancing at the Victory Cafe, this is a beautiful novel about dark family secrets, betrayal, love and redemption. 1666. A child is born in the farmhouse at Windebank, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Named Rejoice (Joy) by her dying father, Joy grows up witness to the persecution of the farming community for following a banned faith.

Tilly Trotter has devotedly served Mark Sopwith at Highfield Manor for twelve years. She is his wife in all but name. Theirs is a scandalous yet happy arrangement. But when Mark dies, Tilly is left pregnant with his illegitimate child. Cast out of the manor house by Mark's spiteful grown-up daughter, Tilly is forced to face the prejudices of the local village. No stranger to hardship, she makes do as best she can, but when a villager's vicious attack leaves her baby son, Willy, half blinded, she knows that it is time to leave her native Tyneside.

It is a cold December night and Sylvie Dugdale is weeping as she walks by the Mersey. She fails to notice an approaching figure, and jumping to one side to avoid collision, she finds herself struggling in the ice-cold river. Constable Brendan O'Hara, just coming off duty, sees the girl's plight and dives in to rescue her. He is dazzled by her beauty but discovers that Sylvie's husband is in prison, and the closeness that Brendan soon longs for is impossible. But he is able to help her escape from Liverpool....

In 1998, Helga Schneider, in her sixties, was summoned from Italy to the nursing home in Vienna in which her 90-year-old mother lived. The last time she had seen her mother was 27 years earlier, when her mother asked her daughter to try on the SS uniform which she treasures, and tried to give her several items of jewellery, the loot of holocaust victims, which Schneider rejected.

It is the late 1850s, and a tired woman holding a baby walks from Hull to one of the big houses in Anlaby - the home of the wealthy Rayners. She knocks at the door and shoves the baby at young James Rayner. The father was 'young Mr Rayner', and the mother is dead. Then she vanishes. The respectable shipping family of Hull are shattered.

Can two friends find hope in hard times? Ruby and Grace have grown up in the poorest slums of Hull. Friends since early childhood, they have supported each other in bad times and good. But their families are bound together by more than friendship, and secrets from the past threaten to make their lives even more difficult. The local cotton mill has provided work for Ruby and Grace since they were nine years old, and now, years later, both girls find themselves the objects of attention from the mill owner's sons.

After her French father and English mother are brutally murdered, bluestocking Madeleine Moreau impulsively travels to France to find the family she didn't know existed. Madeleine is in favour of the people's revolution, but her views are shaken after she arrives in Paris and witnesses Louis XVI's death by guillotine. When France declares war on England, Madeleine is trapped, but enigmatic Comte Etienne d'Aubery comes to the rescue when he offers her shelter in his home, Chateau Mirabelle.

Sarah Foster's parents have been fighting a constant battle with poverty, disease and crime. When her father, Will, is involved in a terrible accident at work, their lives became even harder. But Will's good deeds of the past pay off as John Rayner decides to rescue the Fosters. John provides them with work and a house on the estate owned by his wealthy family.

1901. Tina Rose is the beloved daughter of a wealthy Jewish family while Edward grew up with an abusive father in the wilds of New Zealand. Despite their differences, the two fall madly in love when Edward arrives in England, looking for a better future. However, the consequences of their love affair are terrible for Tina, as she is shamed by the father she adores, and Edward is sent away. Against all the odds, Tina and Edward find each other again.

London, 1939. When tragedy strikes, Libby Andrews is left homeless and destitute, fending for herself on the capital's most dangerous streets. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Libby is on the cusp of making a decision that could jeopardise her future when a local boy saves her from ruin. The kindness of this stranger sets her on a different path, and Libby heads to Liverpool with a determined mind and hope in her heart. There, she reconnects with long lost family - but will she be able to uncover the truth that tore them apart all those years ago?

Scarborough, 1880. Young Jeannie spends her days watching her mother and the other harbour girls sitting at the water's edge - mending nets, gutting herring - and waiting for her friend Ethan Wharton to come in on his father's fishing smack. As she was growing up, Jeannie always expected to marry Ethan, who is loyal and dependable. But then she meets Harry - a stranger who has come to visit from Hull for the day - and she falls for him.

The cinder path which led from the Northumberland farmhouse would always symbolise defeat for Charlie MacFell. People saw him as a born loser who always got the dirty end of the stick. At the root of the matter were boyhood humiliations by his brutal father - but was that all there was to Charlie MacFell Then an opportunity emerges for Charlie to display his inner strengths and integrity, and to give the lie to those who had thought him to be of no account.

A Christmas party is punctuated by a gunshot under a policeman’s watchful eye. A jewel heist is planned amidst the glitz and glamour of Oxford Street’s Christmas shopping. And lost in a snowstorm, a man finds a motive for murder.... This collection of mysteries explores the darker side of the festive season, from unexplained disturbances in the fresh snow to the darkness that lurks beneath the sparkling decorations.

Blackpool, 1893. Tilly has come a long way from the run-down tenements in which she grew up. She has a small but comfortable home, a loving, handsome husband, two beautiful little'uns - Babs and Beth - and she earns herself a little money weaving wicker baskets. Life is good. Until the day Tilly returns home to find a policeman standing on her doorstep. Her Arthur won't be coming home tonight - nor any night - having fallen to his death whilst working on Blackpool tower. Suddenly Tilly is her daughters' sole protector, and she's never felt more alone.

Kathy Burton longs to escape the drudgery of her life as an unpaid labourer on her father's farm. With only the local church choir and the occasional dance at the village hall for amusement, she yearns for the bright lights. Spurning Morry Robinson's proposal of marriage, Kathy goes to live in the city with his aunt, Jemima Robinson. In turn, she finds employment for Kathy in a department store, but is anxious when Kathy is captivated by the sophisticated and handsome floor manager, Tony Kendall.

There are some things which even the closest friendship cannot survive.... Neighbours Edie Kelsey and Lil Horton have been friends for more than twenty years, sharing the joys and sorrows of tough lives as the wives of fishermen in Grimsby. So it was no surprise that their children were close and that Edie's son, Frank, and Lil's daughter, Irene, would fall in love and marry at a young age. But the declaration of war in 1939 changes everything.

When Jennifer Tucker arrives in the sleepy Devonshire village of Burracombe, she's searching for more than a place to settle.... Like the rest of the nation, the Burracombe villagers are shocked when King George VI dies suddenly. But the arrival of a stranger in the village on the very same day goes almost unnoticed - they all have their own concerns. As Jennifer Tucker looks for a family she hadn't even realised existed, the village gradually becomes involved in her search, and more than one person is led to question their own ideas about families and what they mean.

1688: Beth Ambrose has led a sheltered life within Merryfields, her family home on the outskirts of London; a place where her parents provide a sanctuary for melancholic souls. A passionate and gifted artist, Beth shares a close bond with Johannes the painter, who nurtures her talents and takes her on as his apprentice. But as political tensions begin to rise in the capital, Noah Leyton arrives at her family home in the middle of the night with a proposition that turns Beth's world upside down.

Val Neyler, driving an ambulance through the blazing heart of London, is in an impossible position, for the man she loves is a fighter pilot with the Luftwaffe. And Jenny, whose husband, Simon, is flying Spitfires, finds herself working as a landgirl on a Devon farm. Cara, by contrast, develops her social life, and Maude, in the WAAF, falls in love with two men at once.... And Tina, matriarch of the family, loves them all, scolds them all, and tries to understand the new generation growing up in the troubled times of war.

Imogen, Rita and Debby all missed the original evacuation and now the authorities are finding it difficult to place them. When Auntie and her niece, Jill, who run the Canary and Linnet Public House, offer to take them in, the billeting officer is greatly relieved. The countryside is heaven to the three little townies, especially after they meet Woody and Josh. They find that by climbing to the top of a tree they are able to watch the comings and goings of the young fighter pilots.