Historical Family Saga

Set during the Depression in the South Chicago neighborhood of Sinclair's The Jungle, Betty O'Leary's family struggles to scrape by in this harsh, foul-smelling, yet compassionate area. The youngest in her Irish Catholic family, Betty is overshadowed by her pretty sister, Maureen, and when tragedy threatens to shatter her world, Betty is sent away to stay with relatives.

Michael McGarrity returns with the second installment of his sweeping, richly authentic New York Times best-selling American West trilogy set in the raw, untrammeled New Mexico backlands during the Roaring '20s, the Great Depression, and World War II. Hard Country, the first novel in the Kerney family trilogy and the debut prequel to his national best-selling Kevin Kerney crime novels, was critically acclaimed for its authentic, gritty realism; its sprawling, engrossing story; and its compelling, engaging characters.

Germany 1939 – To save her baby, Trudi Beck must hand her over to strangers who will take her across the sea to a foreign country. Trudi has already lost her husband to the Nazis, her stepsons are taking the train too. Walking away from the train station with empty arms is the hardest thing she's ever done. London 1939 – Newly married, Sally Matthews, is alone again. Her husband is away training for war, leaving her days and home empty. She volunteers to help with the children from the Kindertransport, becoming captivated by five-year-old Tom and his baby sister, Liesel.

When her husband returns shell-shocked and broken from the Great War and his mother makes her life a misery, Betty Wellow discovers how bitter and hard life can truly be. But it is not until a devastating storm sweeps through their small fishing village and endangers her life that she sees her chance to escape - and takes it. Fleeing to Bristol, she changes her name to Mabel Brook and takes a position as a maid. But tragedy strikes once more after the sudden death of her mistress, and she is cast back onto the streets.

It's 1911, and Greta Goldbaum is forced to move from glittering Vienna to damp England to wed Albert, a distant cousin. The Goldbaum family are one of the wealthiest in the world, with palaces across Europe, but as Jews and perpetual outsiders, they know that strength lies in family. But World War I looms, and even the influential Goldbaums cannot alter its course. For the first time in 200 years, the family will find itself on opposing sides, and Greta will have to choose: the family she's created, or the one she left behind.

On the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, two families meet at the Duchess of Richmond's Ball. From this moment on, their stories will be linked by a secret. Julian Fellowes's Belgravia is a story in 11 episodes published week by week in the tradition of Charles Dickens. Belgravia is the story of a secret. A secret that unravels behind the porticoed doors of London's grandest postcode. The story behind the secret will be revealed in weekly bite-sized instalments complete with twists and turns and cliff-hanger endings.

In mid 17th-century England, the nation was in upheaval. In the Dorset countryside, one sunlit afternoon, a young girl, illicitly bathing in a stream, first fell in love with a passing stranger. Her parents called her Dorcas, but he called her Campion and that's what she longed to be, then and forever. She had one gift left for her by her unknown father - a pendant made of gold, banded by tiny glowing stones and at its base was a seal engraved with an axe and the words: St Matthew.

In a small town in upstate New York in 1928, four-year-old Evelyn Wilson goes missing. Instantly, old prejudices claw to the surface. As a frenzy of panic and bloodlust overwhelms all reason, the community turns on the Schatzman family. A terrible witch hunt follows. The Schatzmans' young son is accused of horrifying crimes. As their life in America falls apart, leaving nothing but anguish and devastation, some of the Schatzmans decide to return home to Berlin. But Germany in the 1930s is no safe harbor.

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.

The Quality Street Factory is fizzing with the news that the King and Queen and the two young princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, are going to visit the Mackintosh Factory where the country’s favourite wrapped chocolate is made. The factory floor is heady with excitement but plans are dealt a blow when a much loved staff member is the victim of a poisoning incident. Everyone is under suspicion, which only adds to Reenie Calder’s woes, anxious that her new promotion has only made her stick out even more like a sore thumb.

In 1900 Sardinia, a young woman’s remarkable talent with a needle earns her a position as a seamstress with a wealthy family. Inside this privileged world far different from her own humble beginnings, the skilled sewer quietly takes measurements, sketches designs, mends hems—and in the silence, hears whispered secrets and stories of all those around her.

1870 - Emma Grady has spent seven years of servitude as a convict in Australia. Now, having earned her ticket of leave, she is still bound by chains of honour and friendship. Yet she lives for the day when she will return to England, to face those who cheated and betrayed her. And to Marlow Tanner, the man she loves and whose tragic child she bore and then lost.

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.

Early Warning opens in 1953 with the Langdon family at a crossroads. Their stalwart patriarch, Walter, who with his wife, Rosanna, sustained their farm for three decades, has suddenly died, leaving their five children, now adults, looking to the future. Only one will remain in Iowa to work the land, while the others scatter to Washington, D.C., California, and everywhere in between.

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.

In 1914, Britain faces a new kind of war. For Edward and Beatrice Hunter, their children, servants and neighbours, life will never be the same again. For David, the eldest, war means a chance to do something noble; but enlisting will break his mother's heart. His sister Diana, nineteen and beautiful, longs for marriage. She has her heart set on Charles Wroughton, son of Earl Wroughton, but Charles will never be allowed to marry a banker's daughter.

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.

Spending five months eating trail dust wasn't Leo Spencer's first choice. Or his second. He's not one to run away, but some situations can't be fixed and his family—two brothers and a sister—needs to start over. Which is how he finds himself on a westbound wagon train. Evangeline has a secret, one that has sent her on a journey across the plains on the Oregon Trail. When her father is badly hurt and she needs help, Leo is there. A deal is struck, and the two unlikely friends form an alliance . . . that leads to more.

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.

Against the chaotic backdrop of World War II, Grace Murphy is working as a midwife in Doncaster Royal Infirmary with her two friends, Clodagh and Patsy. In between delivering babies and tending wounded airmen, the girls endure bombing raids, rationing and the hardships and heartbreak that war brings. But in the faces of the new babies she welcomes to the world, Grace always looks for hope, as she dreams of a time when the war will end.