Showing results by author "Hazel Gaynor" in All Categories

December 1952. As the young Queen Elizabeth II prepares to deliver the first of her traditional Christmas Messages, dedicated staff work behind the scenes to prepare for festive celebrations at the Sandringham Estate. Among the hard workers are Jack Devereaux and Olive Carter – old friends who are about to be reunited. Over the course of five years, while Olive works as a royal correspondent and Jack is a chef in the Queen’s household, their paths will cross time and time again. But as the two grow closer, their relationship is threatened by a secret that Olivia is afraid to reveal.

When news reaches Kansas that her beloved sister has tragically died, Emily Gale must become a mother overnight. Her sister’s orphaned child, Dorothy, desperately needs a home. But Emily doubts her ability to fill her sister’s shoes; her life on the barren Kansas prairies is no place for a child. On the unforgiving plains, Emily's courage is endlessly tested. The prolonged drought and relentless dust storms threaten to destroy everything – including her home and her marriage.

1838: when a terrible storm blows up off the Northumberland coast, Grace Darling, the lighthouse keeper’s daughter, knows there is little chance of survival for the passengers on the small ship battling the waves. But her actions set in motion an incredible feat of bravery that echoes down the century. 1938: when 19-year-old Matilda Emmerson sails from across the Atlantic to New England, she faces an uncertain future. Sent away in disgrace, she must stay with her reclusive relative, Harriet Flaherty, a lighthouse keeper on Rhode Island.

Ireland, 1912. Fourteen members of a small village set sail on RMS Titanic, hoping to find a better life in America. For 17-year-old Maggie Murphy, the journey is bittersweet. Though her future lies in an unknown new place, her heart remains in Ireland with the sweetheart she left behind. Chicago, 1982. Adrift after the death of her father, Grace Butler struggles to decide what comes next. When her Great Nana Maggie shares the painful secret she harboured for almost a lifetime about the Titanic, the revelation gives Grace new direction.

Evie and Thomas experience a very different war. Frustrated by life as a privileged young lady, Evie longs to play a greater part in the conflict - but how? - and as Thomas struggles with the unimaginable realities of war, he also faces personal battles back home, where War Office regulations on press reporting cause trouble at his father's newspaper business. Through their letters Evie and Thomas share their greatest hopes and fears - and grow ever fonder from afar. Can love flourish amid the horror of the First World War, or will fate intervene?

Liverpool 1940. Alice King stands on the deck of SS Carlisle, waiting to escort a group of children to Canada as overseas evacuees. She is finally doing her bit for the war. In London, as the Blitz bombs rain down and the threat of German invasion looms, Lily Nicholls anxiously counts the days for news of her son and daughter’s safe arrival.

China, 1941. With Japan’s declaration of war on the Allies, Elspeth Kent’s future changes forever. When soldiers take control of the missionary school where she teaches, comfortable security is replaced by rationing, uncertainty and fear. Ten-year-old Nancy Plummer has always felt safe at Chefoo School. Now the enemy, separated indefinitely from anxious parents, the children must turn to their teachers - to Miss Kent and her new Girl Guide patrol especially - for help.

Movie stars and paparazzi flock to Cannes for the glamorous film festival, but Grace Kelly, the biggest star of all, wants only to escape from the flashbulbs. When struggling perfumer Sophie Duval shelters Miss Kelly in her boutique, fending off a persistent British press photographer, James Henderson, a bond is forged between the two women and sets in motion a chain of events that stretches across 30 years of friendship, love, and tragedy.

1917: When two young cousins, Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright from Cottingley, England, announce they have photographed fairies at the bottom of the garden, their parents are astonished. But when the great novelist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle endorses the photographs' authenticity, the girls become a sensation, their discovery offering something to believe in amid a world ravaged by war.

New York, 1937: When estranged sisters Clara and Madeleine Sommers learn their grandmother is dying, they agree to fulfill her last wish: to travel across Europe - together. They are to deliver three letters, in which Violet will say good-bye to those she hasn’t seen since traveling to Europe 40 years earlier. Clara, ever-dutiful, sees the trip as an inconvenient detour before her wedding to millionaire Charles Hancock, but it’s also a chance to embrace her love of art. Budding journalist Madeleine relishes the opportunity to develop her ambitions....

1876. Among the depravity of Covent Garden's flower markets, orphaned Irish sisters Flora and Rosie Flynn sell posies of violets and watercress to survive. 1912. Twenty-one-year-old Tilly Harper leaves her native Lake District to become assistant housemother at one of London’s homes for orphaned and crippled flower girls. It is a chance to leave her own troubled past behind. Hidden between the pages of a lost notebook, Tilly finds dried flowers and a heart-breaking tale of loss and separation, as Flora's entries reveal how she never stopped looking for her lost sister.

The new rich and compelling novel from the author of The Girl Who Came Home. Perfect for fans of Kate Morton and Rachel Hore. Dolly Lane is a dreamer, a downtrodden maid who longs to dance on the London stage, but the outbreak of war takes everything from her: Teddy, the man she loves - and her hopes of a better life. When she secures employment as a chambermaid at London's grandest hotel, The Savoy, Dolly's proximity to the dazzling guests makes her yearn for a life beyond the grey drudgery she was born into.