Historical Tragedy

Two very different girls from this tight-knit community join up as ARP Wardens to do their bit for the home front. Violet Simms lives with her controlling, widowed mother who runs the local pawn shop. At just 20-years-old, Violet longs for friendship, love and escape. It seems her dreams might come true until tragedy strikes on one of the very worst nights of the Birmingham Blitz. Grace Templeton is the eldest in her family of 10 children. Spirited Grace is determined never to become burdened by child bearing and drudgery like her mother.

In this, perhaps Dickens' most profound and personal novel, we are invited to share in the sentimental education of Pip, the poor boy from the village forge who risks losing himself in snobbery and selfishness when he mysteriously inherits a fortune. The story moves from the bleak Kentish marshes of Pip's childhood to a thrilling climax that mingles tragedy and triumph.

In the euphoria of the armistice, a young woman lay dying. Daisy had grown up, barefoot on the cobbles, in a village on the rugged North Devon coast; she was mindful of the perils of the uncertain sea. Her family had also been exposed to the dangers of disease and the First World War, but for Daisy, it was her own mother who posed the greatest threat of all.

After finding her great-grandmother's diary and seeing the writing on the wall for her own daughters, Lizzy's search for equality is ignited into a crusade for women's freedom of representation. Lizzy is determined not to let her ancestors' sacrifices be for naught. The third novel in the Monroe series follows Lizzy and her family from mourning to jubilation. Along the way, her perseverance is tested.

Tragedy and Triumph is based on the extraordinary life of an Afghan teenager whose loving childhood is shuttered by war. Ahmad Ansari is badly injured in a rocket attack on his house during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1970s. The memoir details challenges that young Ahmad faces since then, how he graduates valedictorian in Kabul to eventually earn a doctorate degree in France and join his refugee family in the United States.

With his parents deceased and his older brother deserting his family, William Blay is struggling with insolvency. After selling his farm in New Norfolk, Van Diemen’s Land, William packs up his wife and three daughters and absconds to Port Phillip. But life in the new Colony is dogged by the same dramas that hounded William in Van Diemen’s Land. A new start is not easy as it first seemed. Forced to deal with the First World War and the Great Depression, they fight to make ends meet.

Shakespeare writes about the plight of Romeo and Juliet with a lot of empathy and views their tragedy as a result of bad fate, rather than a problem with their characters. We sense from the very start that their relationship is doomed. Romeo and Juliet are portrayed as sincere and virtuous young people who are madly in love, but because of the feud between their families, their relationship has to end. As they won't even consider a separation, the only way out of the situation they find themselves in is by taking their own lives.

Olive Oatman isn’t a household name, but a distinct feature on her face has made her infamous for the worst reasons. She is the girl with the blue tattoo. The story behind the distinctive tattoo is the stuff of legends. Some believed it was placed on her face during her captivity, following the brutal murders of her family members and the kidnapping of her and her sister. Others believe it was placed on her after her return.

"The Tragedy of Macbeth" is a play written by William Shakespeare. Set mainly in Scotland, the play illustrates the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake. The play was most likely written during the reign of James I, who had been James VI of Scotland before he succeeded to the English throne in 1603. James was a patron of Shakespeare's acting company and of all the plays Shakespeare wrote during James's reign, "Macbeth" most clearly reflects the playwright's relationship with the sovereign.