Showing results by author "Diney Costeloe" in All Categories

Rita and Rosie Stevens are only nine and five years old when their widowed mother marries a violent bully called Jimmy Randall and has a baby boy by him. Under pressure from her new husband, she is persuaded to send the girls to an orphanage, not knowing that the papers she has signed will entitle them to do what they like with the children. And it is not long before the powers that be decide to send a consignment of orphans to their sister institution in Australia. Among them - without their family's consent or knowledge - are Rita and Rosie.

After her mother's death, 20-year-old Sophie Ross is left orphaned, with only her erstwhile nursemaid and faithful friend, Hannah, for company. Penniless and with little chance of an income, she looks for work as a governess in London to avoid destitution. But unbeknownst to Sophie, her mother instructed Hannah to post a letter to Trescadinnick House in Cornwall upon her death. The letter will be the catalyst that changes Sophie's life forever as she learns of her mother's doomed romance and family she left behind in Cornwall.  

After the Franco-Prussian War and the siege of 1870-71, the St Clair family return to Paris, seeking refuge and security, only to be swept up into the terrible cruelties and violence of the Commune. Here their young daughter, Hélène, falls ill and, in an unlucky twist of fate, becomes separated from her family. Alone and frightened, she has to fend for herself on the war-torn streets. Meanwhile, her two brothers face each other as mortal enemies across the barricades. 

Plymouth, 1941. As sirens blare all around, the Shawbrook family take refuge in a packed shelter. Bombs have already begun to fall through the night sky when they realise their infant son, Freddie, has been forgotten in the rush, left to sleep in his crib. Terrified, Vera, his young mother, races to find him and bring him to safety. The next morning, air raid warden David Shawbrook returns from his watch to find the shelter pulverised, and his family seemingly all dead. Dirty footprints inside their home betray the looters who have rifled through the house.

As the St Clair family prepare for the wedding of their daughter, Clarice, at the great country house of Montmichel, trouble is brewing. Their younger daughter, Helene, became friends with orphaned Annette during the terrible events of the 1871 siege of Paris. Now they are reunited, with Annette working below stairs for Helene's parents. But Annette is hiding a dangerous secret, which Helene has promised to keep at all costs.

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.

Rita and Rosie Stevens are only nine and five years old when their widowed mother marries a violent bully called Jimmy Randall and has a baby boy by him. Under pressure from her new husband, she is persuaded to send the girls to an orphanage – not knowing that the papers she has signed will entitle them to do what they like with the children. And it is not long before the powers that be decide to send a consignment of orphans to their sister institution in Australia. Among them – without their family's consent or knowledge – are Rita and Rosie, the throwaway children.

1921. In the sleepy village of Charlton Ambrose, eight ash trees stand as a timeless memorial to the men killed in the Great War. On a dark and chilly night, a ninth tree appears. Who planted it and why? And who was 'the unknown soldier' for whom it is marked? 2001. Eighty years later, the memorial is under threat from developers. Local reporter, Rachel Elliott, is determined to save it, and to solve the mystery of the ninth tree. The trail will take her into the dark heart of her own family history; to a tragic, love; and to a secret that has been kept since the war to end all wars.

When one of the houses in an exclusive cul-de-sac is sold to students, dramas begin to unfold and secrets long hidden come to the surface. Local battle-axe Sheila Colby is appalled when Ned Short sells his house as student accommodation. The residents of Dartmouth Circle look on themselves as an exclusive little club, where everyone knows each other and privacy is respected. But now that is about to end and all kinds of things long hidden will come out into the light of day, with dramatic consequences.

When Adelaide Anson-Gravetty finds out her father is not the man who raised her, she is both shocked and intrigued. Determined to find out more about her new family, she travels to the convent of Our Lady of Mercy in France to meet her aunt, the Reverend Mother. But when France falls to the German army, Adelaide and the nuns are soon in the thick of a war that threatens both their beliefs and their lives. Collaborating with the Resistance, sheltering Jewish orphans, defying the rulings of Vichy France: these are dangerous activities in dangerous times.

Germany, 1937. Fear and betrayal stalk the streets. People disappear. Persecution of the Jews has become a national pastime. When Ruth Friedman's husband is arrested by the SS, she is left to fend for herself and her four children. She alone stands as their shield against the Nazis. But where can she go? Where will her family be safe? Ruth must overcome the indifference, hatred and cruelty that surrounds her as she and her family race to escape the advancing Nazi army's final solution.

In the small Somerset village of Wynsdown, Charlotte Shepherd is happily married and now feels settled in her adopted home after arriving from Germany on the Kindertransport as a child during the war. Meanwhile, the squire's fighter pilot son, Felix, has returned to the village with a fiancée in tow. Daphne is beautiful, charming... and harbouring secrets. After meeting during the war, Felix knows some of Daphne's past, but she has worked hard to conceal one that could unravel her carefully built life.

Lucinda McFarlane is engaged to be married to dashing Sir David Melcome, but their society wedding has to be scaled right down when war is declared. Will David even live to see their baby born? Mabel Oakley, once a maid for the McFarlanes, has inherited Thomas Clarke’s printing works, but an unexpected turn of events leaves her at the mercy of her father’s old enemy, solicitor John Sheridan, just as she is beginning to fall for his son. What can she do?

Thirteen-year-old Lisa has escaped from Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport. She arrives in London unable to speak a word of English, her few belongings crammed into a small suitcase. Among them is one precious photograph of the family she has left behind. Lonely and homesick, Lisa is adopted by a childless couple. But when the Blitz blows her new home apart, she wakes up in hospital with no memory of who she is or where she came from. The authorities give her a new name and dispatch her to a children's home. With the war raging around her, what will become of Lisa now?