Historical Family Saga

Maria and Josef live with their children in a valley in westernmost Austria. When the First World War breaks out and Josef is drafted into the army, Maria is left to provide for her family alone. Every day is a struggle against starvation, the harsh alpine climate and the hostile nearby villagers who see Maria as little more than a beautiful temptress out for the men left behind. But when a red-haired stranger arrives in the village, Maria feels happiness seep back into her life and she faces a choice whose consequences will affect the lives of her family for generations to come.

Cambridgeshire – 1942. As a new year begins and the war continues, young Artie Talbot feels trapped. In his heart he longs to fight, like his two brothers, for his king and country but is duty tied to Blackberry Farm. As feelings grow between Artie and Jeanie Salmons, Artie wonders if marriage will help him to finally accept his lot and settle down. Meanwhile, his brother John Talbot must come to terms with the tragic loss of a lost love. Can he overcome his trauma and begin to build a new life for himself and his new born son?

Neuf années ont passé depuis le mariage de Polly, l'union de Clary et d'Archie et le divorce de Louise. Une nouvelle génération d'enfants a vu le jour, et quand la Duche s'éteint en juin 1956, elle emporte avec elle les derniers vestiges d'un monde révolu. Hugh et Edward, tous deux remariés, doivent faire face aux difficultés financières de l'entreprise familiale ; Louise, désormais mannequin, a une liaison avec un homme marié, tandis que Polly et Clary tentent de trouver un équilibre entre leur foyer et leurs ambitions personnelles.

Mrs Olga Stych, daughter of an immigrant Ukrainian pig farmer, has finally made it to the top of the social pyramid of Tollemarche, a small town in Canada’s Bible Belt. But to get there, she has not only had to see off her most determined rival, she has also had to neglect her son Hank. With enemies outside her home, and a latchkey kid inside—Hank was left to fend for himself—Olga little realises that the moment of her decline is to arrive just when she appears to be at her most triumphant.

Cliffehaven, 1946. The war is over and those who have spent years fighting behind enemy lines are finally coming home. Peggy Reilly is over the moon that her husband Jim is safely back from Burma. But after the horrors he has endured, adjusting to life at Beach View will not be easy. Can he and Peggy find a way through? Meanwhile evacuee Ruby Clark has much to contend with when her estranged mother turns up, having completed a long prison sentence. There is huge heartache still to come for Ruby, and she will need her Beach View family more than ever.

Liverpool, 1925. Fourteen-year-old Lillian Taylor has spent her childhood in a loveless orphanage after the death of her mother. When a well-dressed young woman claiming to be her aunt arrives and whisks her away to her large townhouse, Lillian hopes it signals a change in her fortunes. However there's more to Aunt Joan than meets the eye and when Joan discovers Lillian's budding romance with one of her coworkers she swiftly threatens his family. Events take a tragic turn when Joan becomes ill and reveals the secrets she's been keeping that will change Lillian's life forever....

1871. When Fergus Deagan's wife dies in childbirth, she makes him promise to take their family to Western Australia to join his brother Bram, also to marry again. She's right. His young sons and newborn daughter do need a mother's love, and he needs something different. Disowned by her father for becoming pregnant, Cara Payton bears a stillborn baby. She's in deep despair until a plea to wet-nurse a motherless baby gives her life new purpose.

For more than two centuries, Winterbourne Hall has stood atop a bluff overseeing the English countryside of Cornwall and the sea beyond. In 1947, Londoner Alice Miller accepts a post as governess at Winterbourne, looking after Captain Jonathan de Grey’s twin children. Falling under the de Greys’ spell, Alice believes the family will heal her own past sorrows. But then, the twins’ adoration becomes deceitful and taunting. Their father, ever distant, turns spiteful and cruel. The manor itself seems to lash out. Alice finds her surroundings subtly altered, her air slightly chilled.

This story starts with a family. For now, it is a father and a mother with two sons, one with his father’s violence in his blood, one with his mother’s artistry. One leaves. One stays. They will be joined by others whose deeds will determine their fate. It is a beginning. Their stories will intertwine and evolve over the course of 2,000 years. They will meet again and again at different times and in different places. From Palestine at the dawn of the first millennium and journeying across 50 countries to a life among the stars, their destinies remain the same....

It is 1950 in glittering, vibrant New York City. Lucia Sartori is the beautiful twenty-five-year-old daughter of a prosperous Italian grocer in Greenwich Village. The postwar boom is ripe with opportunities for talented girls with ambition, and Lucia becomes an apprentice to an up-and-coming designer at chic B. Altman’s department store on Fifth Avenue.

Tragedy strikes a small Yorkshire mining town when Sarah Wild’s husband dies in a terrible accident. Widowed and destitute, Sarah is forced to remarry to save her daughters, Mary-Anne and Eliza, from the workhouse. But her new husband is a violent drunk, and when Sarah tragically dies too, Mary-Anne and Eliza are orphaned. Unable to rely on their drunken stepfather, Mary-Anne and Eliza are left to fend for themselves. They are determined to stick together, but life becomes complicated when Mary-Anne, the eldest, falls pregnant with the child of a married mine owner.

In the aftermath of a tumultuous year, Fiona Winslow finds solace in the decaying grandeur of Wurimbirra, the rambling family estate on the east coast of Australia she once called home. Intent on restoring it, she discovers the keys to more than just the dilapidated mansion—beneath the crumbling plaster and dust are secrets that have been buried for a generation. When a misshelved book, The Midnight Estate, catches her attention in her late uncle's library, Fiona is plunged into a tale that mirrors her own—a story of love, loss and betrayal.

Tearaway Viv’s fragile truce with her grandmother is threatened when her flighty mother suddenly shows up from America and expects to pick up where she left off. It’s what Viv’s always dreamed of - but is she ready for the drama Pauline brings with her? Helen finds herself playing surrogate mother to her French niece Katrine, while keeping their family relationship a secret from the rest of the Nightingale staff. However, independent Kat is determined to do things her way. But underneath it all, she is lost. She is in a foreign country, still mourning the loss of her mother.

When sixteen-year-old Sally is evacuated to the English south coast, she is terrified by what lies ahead of her. All she knows are the sights and sounds of London's East End – but Sally swallows her tears as they leave the familiar landmarks behind, knowing that she has to be a Grown-Up Girl and play mother to her six-year-old brother Ernie. Playing mother is nothing new for Sally – their real mother Florrie, a good-time girl, hasn't even come to the station to wave them off and Ernie, crippled at an early age by polio, is used to depending on his older sister.

Summer, 1953. The sun is shining on Little Green Street, the bunting is being brought out, and Britain is getting ready to crown its new Queen. Except Helen Jones doesn't feel much like celebrating. Her father passed away last year, on the very same day as King George. Life hasn't felt the same ever since. Her husband Tad has a plan. As the newly-appointed chair of the small town's Coronation Tea Party committee, he's hoping that the day will be the perfect moment to bring a spark of joy back to their little family - and to the whole community.

It is 1898, and groups of starving Puerto Ricans, los hambrientos, roam the parched countryside and dusty towns begging for food. Under the yoke of Spanish oppression, the Caribbean island is forced to prepare to wage war with the United States. Up in the mountainous coffee region of Utuado, Vicente Vega and Valentina Sanchez labor to keep their small farm from the creditors. When the Spanish-American War and the great San Ciriaco Hurricane of 1899 bring devastating upheaval, the young couple is lured, along with thousands of others, to the sugar plantations of Hawaii.

It is 1940 and Staff Nurse Polly Brown has been granted a posting at Cliffehaven Memorial Hospital to be near her badly injured husband, Adam. But her decision has meant that she has had to part with their five-year-old daughter, Alice, who is travelling to safety in Canada. Polly's heart is torn in two as she says goodbye to Alice and heads to the Beach View boarding house, where she throws herself into her work. But as she confronts the fact that Adam may not survive his injuries, a shocking telegram arrives at Beach View.

Evelyn Barton was destined to die in 1825, but a stranger from the future traveled back in time, arriving at Barton Place, an estate that had been in the Barton family since 1743, and then changed everything for Evelyn Barton and her family. Evelyn is the only daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Barton of Barton Place, Thomas’s inheritance, following a family lineage since 1743, when King George II bestowed the earldom of Barclay on his great grandfather, with land nestled between Cambridge, Brighton and Brookline, overlooking the Charles River on the outskirts of Boston.

Bristol 1936. Jenny Crawford has resigned herself to a loveless marriage living hand to mouth with their two children. Like many others, husband Roy struggles to find work at the docks but a chance encounter turns the family's fortunes around. Not only does he get regular work but they are also allocated a council house on Coronation Close on the outskirts of the city. Jenny and the children are overjoyed, this is the fresh start she could only ever dream of. But trouble feels never too far away.

Fourteenth century England.The country is in turmoil.The King is in debt to the City,and the old order had broken down.The King's mistress,Alice Perrers,becomes the virtual ruler of the country. Dislaked and despised by the Black Prince, her strong connections to the merchants make her a natural ally for the King's ambitious second son,John of Gaunt. Together, they create a powerfull position for one of his henchmen, Geoffrey Chaucer.