Historical Family Saga

It's the 1880s, and James and Mary McGrother's family has been divided by emigration, like many of their neighbors in the village of Blackrock in county Louth. The couple who survived the Great Hunger have had to watch more than half their family leave the parish. The responsibility to care for one another extends beyond blood or marriage ties for the McGrother family in New York, when a young Irishman goes missing in America. Back in Ireland, at a time when James and Mary least expect it, a family member returns - but not everyone is pleased with the reunion.

Like many before her, Maria Lagana has come to Hollywood to outrun her past. Born in Rome, where every Sunday her father took her to the cinema instead of church, Maria immigrates with her mother to Los Angeles after a childhood transgression leads to her father’s arrest.

Destined to be a classic, Sweeping Up Glass is a tough and tender novel of love, race, and justice, and a ferocious, unflinching look at the power of family. Olivia Harker Cross owns a strip of mountain in Pope County, Kentucky, a land where Whites and Blacks eke out a living in separate, tattered kingdoms and where silver-faced wolves howl in the night. But someone is killing the wolves of Big Foley Mountain - and Olivia is beginning to realize how much of her own bitter history she’s never understood: Her mother’s madness, building toward a fiery crescendo.

A sweeping story of three generations of women, crossing from London to Ireland and back again, and the enduring effort to retrieve the secrets of the past.

1916: Betty O’Fogarty is proud and clever. Spurred on by Betty's belief in her husband Seamus’s talent as a violin-maker and her desire to escape rural life, the couple elopes to Dublin. As Dublin is plunged into chaos as the Easter Rebellion of 1916, Betty gives birth to her first child to the sound of gunfire and shelling. A hundred years later, secrets churn their way to the surface, and Betty’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren uncover both Betty’s ruthlessness and her unique brand of heroism.

It’s autumn 1940 and the Blitz has cast its shadow over London. Everyone is doing their bit to help, including the three Harrison sisters of the East End’s Victory Walk. Nurse Rose is snowed under in the hospital tending to victims of the bombings. Her sister Clover is on active duty on the south coast, while the baby of the family, Daisy, is growing up quickly working on the London Underground, now that thousands of people are taking shelter down below. Even in wartime, the sisters find time for a wedding, but the bride is keeping a secret, which threatens to come to light.

As the Second World War rages on, nurse Kitty Pattison’s life takes a nomadic turn as her work with the Red Cross sees her traversing the country, moving from post to post. With her best friends Jo and Trixie also scattered across the UK, and her soldier sweetheart Michael off on the continent undertaking medical missions he can’t discuss, the war takes its toll and long days are followed by sleepless nights interrupted only by nightmares of what she’s seen on the wards.

In this highly anticipated new novel, Irishman Jack McNultyis a "temporary gentleman" - an Irishman whose commission in the British army inWWII was never permanent. Sitting in his lodgings in Accra, Ghana, in 1957, he's writing the story of his life with desperate urgency. He cannot take one step further without examining all of the extraordinary events that he has seen. A lifetime of war and world travel - as a soldier in WWII, an engineer, a UN observer - has brought him to this point. But the memory that weighs heaviest on his heart is that of the beautiful Mai Kirwan and their tempestuous, heartbreaking marriage.

A wonderful Christmas gift full of nostalgia and charm. Elsie Grimshaw lives in one of the worst streets in Weatherfield and is desperate to escape from life at home with a brutal father and the drudgery of working at the local mill. Grabbing at the slim chances that come her way, Elsie goes through the heartbreak of first love and her marriage to bad boy Arnold Tanner at only 16 years old and emerges, if not much older, then certainly wiser.

Since her return home to Berlin, Goldie Schatzman has reconnected with her childhood friend, Leni, a free spirit who has swept Goldie into the Weimar lifestyle that is overflowing with artists and writers, but also with debauchery. Goldie had spent the last nineteen years living a dull life with a spiritless husband. And now she has been set free. As Goldie's daughter, Alma, is coming of marriageable age, her grandparents are determined to find her a suitable match. Will Goldie's life of depravity hurt Alma's chances to find a Jewish husband?

Charleston, South Carolina, 1859. After earning his medical degree in Paris, David returns home to discover that the impish girl he remembers has blossomed into a beautiful young woman. A young woman who proposes marriage. David longs to have Clare by his side and in his bed—but if he lets her that close, she'll discover his secrets. Then David's greatest secret returns from the dead. Thoroughly Cheyenne in spite of his blond hair, Esh has come east seeking answers. He finds not only the brother who abandoned him as a baby but also the woman he's seen in visions.

A patriot soldier in the ragtag Continental army, Philip Kent defies the rule of the British crown, fighting for the future of his adopted American homeland and the future of his wife and newborn son. And when Philip's heroism draws the attention of General George Washington, he is sent on an overwhelmingly risky mission vital to the success of the Revolution. But no sacrifice is too great for freedom . . .

In a remote village surrounded by vast forests on the border of Moldova and Ukraine, sisters Liba and Laya have been raised on the honeyed scent of their Mami's babka and the low rumble of their Tati's prayers. But when a troupe of mysterious men arrives, Laya falls under their spell - despite their mother's warning to be wary of strangers. And this is not the only danger lurking in the woods. As dark forces close in on their village, Liba and Laya discover a family secret passed down through generations.

On Sarah Whitfield's 75 birthday, memories take her back to New York in the 1930s. To a marriage that ends after a year, leaving Sarah shattered. A trip to Europe with her parents does little to raise her spirits, until she meets William, Duke of Whitfield. In time, despite her qualms, William insists on giving up his distant right to the British throne to make Sarah his duchess and his wife. On their honeymoon, the newlyweds buy an old French château, but not long after, the war begins. William joins the allied forces, leaving Sarah; their first child, an infant; and their second child on the way, in France.

Early one morning in 1929, Mary Seneca Steele spontaneously packs a suitcase, gathers up her son and daughter, and drives away in her abusive and dissolute husband’s brand-new Auburn Phaeton automobile, leaving her privileged life in Charleston behind. It is the beginning of a journey of enlightenment that leads Mary “Sen” to the mountains and mysteries of Appalachia, where she will learn unexpected family secrets, create a new life for herself and her children, and finally experience love and happiness before tragedy will once again test her.

In the American Wild West the law is young, and men and women must make their own justice. Casey Stratton has left behind an unbearable situation at home and set off on her own, relying on her courage and inventiveness to survive where most women could not. Damien Rutledge III is a society man from New York, thrusting aside his life of refinement and sophistication in favor of a more basic need - revenge.

A life of poverty in a cramped pit cottage is all that 17-year-old Ruby Dinsdale has known. Even with her father and younger brother working at the coal mine, money is tight. Her mother, Mary, is skilled at stretching what little they have, but the small contribution Ruby makes from her job at the local pub makes all the difference. So when Ruby is sacked, and Mary becomes pregnant again, the family's challenges are greater than ever. When charming Miner Gordon begins to court Ruby, it seems as though happiness is on the horizon.

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.

As Liverpool and its residents begin to heal from the wounds and memories of World War I, life on Weaver Street in 1924 is blessedly peaceful. But as the Depression begins to bite, and the arrival of the Muller family on Weaver Street signals the worrying drumbeats of conflict coming from Germany, the fragile happiness and peace Liverpool has been enjoying looks destined to end. And as the neighbours pull together in the toughest of times, the women on Weaver Street face the prospect of waving their menfolk off to war.

In 1845 Annie Gibson can finally leave Salem Street. Her dreams of being able to open an elegant dressmaking salon in the High Street of Bilsden, a Lancashire mill town, have come true. And she is going to take her father and his second family with her, away from poverty, away from the Rows. But Annie has not left trouble behind. Someone is trying to undermine her business. Her family have their own ideas about what they want to do with their lives.