Historical Family Saga

War rages, but the women and children of Liverpool’s Dr Barnardo’s Home cannot give up hope.... Liverpool, 1943. Yorkshire is the place Lana has always called home, but it’s now filled with painful memories of her fiancé, Dickie, who was killed at sea. When she accepts the challenging position of headmistress at a school in Liverpool, she hopes a new beginning will help to mend her broken heart.

Kitty has seen her fair share of tragedy and instead of thinking about romance, is determined to do her bit for King and country. Her life as a WREN means she is kept busy much of the time, but when Kitty finds herself stationed back home on Merseyside, she meets up again with Frank Feeny, the brave young officer who has always held a place in her heart. Britain is on the verge of victory, but will Kitty embrace the future and learn to love again?

'I'm not working on a factory floor or digging for victory, but in my own small way I do what I can for those I love.' It's 1943, and Peggy Reilly is at her best when the troubles of war come knocking at the door of Beach View Boarding House - especially when it concerns her younger sister, Doreen. Doreen is divorced from Eddie, but his letters have taken on a more threatening tone of late.

It is 1944, and Anne Black is making the best of a new life in Somerset, but bringing up her daughters so far from their father; her mother, Peggy; and their real home of Cliffehaven isn't easy. The safety of Somerset makes separation bearable until danger strikes and rocks Anne's world. Back in Cliffehaven Peggy Reilly is running the Beach View Boarding House with her usual love and warmth. The war is taking its toll, however, and Peggy longs to have her scattered family home again.

It's 1925, and Patricia, Tara and Aideen couldn't be more excited to be starting a new life in Liverpool. Yet it soon becomes clear that all is not as it seems, for the girls are hastily swept onto a huge ocean liner heading to New York. When their father vanishes midway across the Atlantic, the grieving sisters prepare themselves for a new life in the big city. For whatever their father was running from has every chance of catching up with them....

The Awakening Land trilogy traces the transformation of a middle-American landscape from wilderness to farmland to the site of modern industrial civilization, all in the lifetime of one character. The trilogy includes The Trees (1940), The Fields (1946), and The Town (1950) and follows the varied fortunes of Sayward Luckett and her family in southeastern Ohio. The Town tells how Sayward completes her mission and lives to see the transition of her family and her friends, American pioneers, from the ways of wilderness to the ways of civilization.

The Peacock Feast opens on a June day in 1916 when Louis C. Tiffany, the eccentric glass genius, dynamites the breakwater at Laurelton Hall - his fantastical Oyster Bay mansion. The explosion shakes both the apple crate, where Prudence, the daughter of Tiffany’s prized gardener, is sleeping and the rocks where Randall, her seven-year-old brother, is playing. Nearly a century later, Prudence receives an unexpected visit at her New York apartment from Grace, a hospice nurse and the granddaughter of Randall, who Prudence never saw again after he left at age 14 for California.

Vagabonds is the final instalment of Josephine Cox's best-selling Emma Grady trilogy, which finds the heroine content, yet still struggling with the ghosts of her past. 1885. Ex-convict Emma Grady has returned to her hometown of Blackburn and been reunited with her lover Marlow. Now married, with a beautiful home, loving husband and wonderful son, she is still haunted by the past, unable to forget the cruelty of her uncle Caleb Crowther, who ignored her desperate pleas to save her and her tragic first-born.

Molly lives with her repugnant father, who has betrayed her many times. From a young age, living on the streets of London's East End, she has seen the harsh realities of life.... When she's kidnapped by a gang and forced into their underworld, her future seems bleak. Flo spent her early years in an orphanage and is about to turn her hand to teacher training. When a kindly teacher at her school approaches her about a job at Bletchley Park, it could be everything she never knew she wanted.

In Zeiten des Sturms muss die Familie Melzer zusammenhalten, um ihre geliebte Tuchvilla zu retten... Augsburg, 1935. Der Sturm, der sich über Deutschland zusammenbraut, hat auch für die Familie Melzer und ihre geliebte Tuchvilla Konsequenzen: Maries Schneideratelier steht vor dem Aus, als bekannt wird, dass sie jüdischer Abstammung ist. Auch ihr Mann Paul hat mit großen Sorgen zu kämpfen, denn die finanzielle Lage der Tuchfabrik und der wachsende Druck von Seiten der Regierung bereiten ihm schlaflose Nächte.

Britain, 1943. Ronnie Linfoot may be the youngest of three sisters, but she’s determined to do her bit. Against her strict mother’s wishes, Ronnie signs up to join the Grand Union Canal Company, where she’ll be working on a narrowboat taking critical supplies between London and Birmingham. But with no experience on the waterways, she must learn the ropes quickly. She’s facing dreadful weather, long days and rough living conditions. At least she isn’t on her own.

The year is 1911. The young rock blaster Oskar Johansson has been killed in an accident. Or so it says in the local newspaper. In spite of serious injuries, however, Oskar survives. Decades later, Oskar looks back and reflects on his working life as an invalid, his marriage, his dreams, and his hopes. Oskar's life is woven together out of fragments of voices, images, and episodes that, taken together, provide a sharp and precise picture of life in Sweden for the working class.

Kostbare Augenblicke. London, 1946: Der Krieg ist vorbei, doch die Hotelerbin Violet Mason findet kaum Zeit, ihr Liebesglück mit Lionel Burke zu genießen. Ein Juwelendieb treibt sein Unwesen im Savoy. Während der Hausdetektiv und Scotland Yard im Dunkeln tappen, stellt Violet eigene Nachforschungen an. Verbirgt sich hinter dem amerikanischen Gast Gary Stewart etwa das Phantom des berüchtigten Juwelenräubers "Descoyne"? Als eine Jugendliebe Lionel Burkes auftaucht, sucht Violet ausgerechnet in den Armen des Hauptverdächtigen Trost.

Elizabeth Foster has lived in Tillington all her life. She knows everything about the local community… Everything except why another family, the Reedbarrows, now live in her ancestral home, Foster's Mill. When Christopher, a man from 'down south', arrives and begins asking questions about the Mill that no one has dared to ask for generations, secrets begin to surface, and Liz may finally find the answers she's been looking for. And perhaps, at last, Liz and her father will be able to return to their family home.

On the eve of his father's death, Tobias does the unthinkable and flees to the military with his gang. With very little training, they are delivered to Vietnam and the Morrow brothers for punishment. The first of which is detox from drugs. Back in Des Moines, Natalia Morrow's world has been shattered and things have become darker.

When Jenny’s mother abandons her and her younger siblings, Jenny is left at the mercy of her abusive father, Henry. And when Henry beats his eldest daughter so badly that she ends up in the hospital, it seems like there’s nowhere left for them all to go. But factory worker Craig has fallen head over heels for Jenny, and he offers her a place to stay. Happy at last, Jenny begins a new life with him, but when tragedy strikes, she’s left to pick up the pieces of both her broken home – and her broken heart.

Dilly is devastated: with her husband unable to work and four children already at home, they cannot afford to feed their newborn baby. Heartbroken, she delivers her baby girl to the Farthing family, who have just lost their own daughter to measles. This act of desperation will change the lives of both families irrevocably. But when the chance for true love finally comes, will Dilly choose family over her own happiness?

Fifteen-year-old Maisy Mitcham and her twin brother, Duncan, lose their mother to an insane asylum one night in 1960. The twins are sent to their grandmother's country house, Nightingales. Cold and distant, she leaves them to their own devices, to explore and to grow. That is until the day Duncan doesn't come home from the woods. With their grandmother seeming to have little interest in her grandson's disappearance and the police soon giving up hope, it is left to Maisy to discover the truth.

As the Japanese begin their assault on Singapore, Sarah Fuller is forced to leave her parents and fiancé, Philip, behind. The long journey to England is fraught with danger, and Sarah and her sister Jane don’t even know if their great-aunt is alive, let alone waiting for them. They arrive in Cliffehaven, on the south coast of England, and here Sarah must find work to support them both. When the Women's Timber Corps takes over the local estate, Sarah enlists as a lumberjill.

I giorni della spensieratezza e dei giochi sono ormai passati. È il settembre del 1939 e l'ombra della guerra si allunga cupa sulla vita dei Cazalet. In questo clima di sospensione, tra tradimenti, segreti e nascite inaspettate, mentre la famiglia attende che tutto torni come un tempo, le tre ragazze fremono d'impazienza e di desideri. Louise sogna di diventare una grande attrice, Clary fa i suoi primi tentativi di scrittura, mentre la sensibile Polly è alle prese con le insicurezze e le domande dell'adolescenza.