Historical War Saga

Paddington Station, present day. A young woman boards the sleeper train to Cornwall with only a beautiful emerald silk evening dress and an old, well-read diary full of sketches. Ellie Nightingale is a shy violinist who plays like her heart is broken. But when she meets fellow passenger Joe, she feels like she has been given that rarest of gifts...a second chance.

873 AD. The Viking Age grips Northern Europe. Seven years have passed since the ferocious sea battle with Ivar the Boneless, and Hundr is now a Viking war leader of reputation and wealth. A voice from the past calls to Hundr for aid, and he must take his loyal crew and their feared warships across the Whale Road to Viking Dublin, in a vicious and brutal fight against Eystein Longaxe. Hundr must fight against an implacable and powerful enemy amidst brutal attacks, shield wall battles, and treachery. Will his skill and savagery be enough, and can Hundr and his crew survive?

No. It is a simple word, uttered on a summer porch in 1936. And it will haunt Kitty Milton for the rest of her life. Kitty and her husband, Ogden, are both from families considered the backbone of the country. But this refusal will come to be Kitty’s defining moment, and its consequences will ripple through the Milton family for generations. For while they summer on their island in Maine, anchored as they are to the way things have always been, the winds of change are beginning to stir.

In 1941, the United Kingdom was in desperate straits, standing alone with its troops against the colossal war machine of Nazi Germany. There was always Prime Minister Winston Churchill, however, who growled his defiance to Hitler and induced in his people a determination to endure. The Adams family shared that determination and their own kind of optimism.

It was supposed to be a cozy winter in their new cabin, but it started with a cantankerous grizzly wreaking havoc on everything. After a trading foray to visit the Salish, everything seemed to get turned upside down. They found themselves in contested territory with a band of young bucks from the Siksika band that sought to gain scalps and captives from their sworn enemies, the Salish. And that wasn’t enough to upset their peaceful plans, but when Gabe found out the Blackfoot had stolen the mares bred by his stallion and were carrying foals that belonged to him, it became personal.

In the tradition of epic novels like Exodus and Cast a Giant Shadow, Isaac’s Beacon is a sweeping historical tale based on the real events of Israel’s founding - bringing alive the power and complexities of the birth of the Jewish state out of the ashes of the Holocaust. Best-selling author David L. Robbins, called “the Homer of World War II”, turns his mastery of the historical novel to another defining moment of the 20th century: the birth of the state of Israel.

Pauline Kermadec et Nathalie de Tresnel ont grandi ensemble. A dix-neuf ans, malgré des personnalités opposées, elles sont inséparables. Pauline, fille de diplomate réservée, pose un regard curieux et angoissé sur une Europe au bord du gouffre. Nathalie, issue d'une famille désargentée de la noblesse, lutte avec panache contre les préjugés et les convenances de son milieu. L'actualité de l'été 1938 les rattrape. Pauline doit suivre son père à Berlin, au chevet d'une paix toujours plus fragile.

The Quality Street girls are gearing up for Christmas, but with the factory now making gas masks, as well as the nation’s favourite chocolate sweets, it’s anything but normal. They’re having to make other adjustments too. Reenie is in the doldrums after being demoted at work, while Mary has got her hands full getting used to married life and a ready-made family. New girl, Ada, isn’t sure she fits into factory life at all. Then, just as the Christmas party season gets into full swing, Toffee town gets a shock, and soon it isn’t just Christmas cheer that’s in short supply.

Oxford Street, London 1915. Sally Harper quietly battles to keep Harpers afloat in the difficult days of the war, whilst husband Ben is working all hours for the War Office. Beth Burrow is fighting concern for her husband, Jack, now at sea with the Merchant Navy, and the fear she may never see him again and be blessed with a child. Driven to exhaustion, Maggie Gibbs, is now working as a nursing assistant on the battlefields in France. With the everyday horrors of the casualties of war to contend with she suffers her own personal tragedy when her fiancé's plane ditches in the sea.

Porta struggles to keep the heavy tank between the marching soldiers. One moment of inattention, and he will bulldoze an entire company. An enormous fireball strikes the bushes in front of the vehicle. The panzer soldiers jump head first from the tanks for cover. With frightened eyes and beating hearts they lay in the sun, waiting for death. A great wall of fire rises towards the sky. - Stalin organ, Heide mumbles terrified. Porta speeds up the engine. The tank plows through sun and water. They are near Moscow, 1941.

En el año 1961 Rebecca Hoffmann, profesora en Alemania del Este y nieta de Lady Maud, descubrirá que la policía secreta está vigilándola. Mientras, su hermano menor, Walli, sueña con huir a Occidente para convertirse en músico de rock. Por otro lado, Georges Jakes, un joven abogado que trabaja con los hermanos Kennedy, es un activista del movimiento por los derechos civiles de los negros en Estados Unidos que participará en las protestas de los estados del Sur y en la marcha sobre Washington liderada por Martin Luther King.

It is autumn 1940 and, as the bombs rain down on London, a close-knit community struggles to survive. Working at the local post office, Bessie Green does her best to keep her customers' spirits up, but when she receives a telegram addressed to her parents, there's nothing she can do to prevent the heartache that lies ahead. Then Bessie hears that 11-year-old Daisy Mason has been orphaned in a blast, and she's sure that taking Daisy into their home is just what her parents need to help them overcome their grief.

Kitty and Tom Conlon arrive in Liverpool in July 1916 to claim the house Tom’s great-uncle has bequeathed him in his will. The move to England couldn’t have come at a better time. Dublin is in turmoil following the Easter Uprising and Kitty’s brother is now in prison. The house in Weaver Street is all they hoped for, and after a shaky start with her new neighbours, Kitty believes the world is her oyster. Until that is, Tom is conscripted into the navy. With Tom away, it’s up to Kitty and the women of Weaver Street to get each other through the war.

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.

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.

La rumeur court que nous allons être transférés à Varsovie. Heide, qui est toujours bien informé, affirme que là-bas c'est un enfer. Il parle d'une retraite des Allemands sur le front est. Des milliers de parachutistes britanniques ont débarqué et des vagues de soldats polonais sortent des forêts. Mais l'armée polonaise est déjà condamnée à mort. Pas seulement par le Reichsführer Himmler à Berlin, mais aussi par le Maréchal Staline. Les nationalistes polonais demandent, en vain, de l'aide à l'Armée rouge.

Rumours about a war with Germany have been whispered around the Quality Street factory for months. It’s hard for everyone to get their heads around air raids, rationing and the threat of bombings, so to distract themselves, they girls are betting on who is most likely to announce wedding bells.

War is brewing between England and France. Impressed into the Royal Navy, Lieutenant Merrick, against all odds, advanced through the ranks to become an officer, but he is not a gentleman. A man with a tainted past from a traitorous family, cast down by King George—a stain no man can remove. Merrick’s thrust into the role of captain, when the HMS Boudica is attacked by pirates off the coast of Nova Scotia. On a captured enemy vessel, he discovers a king’s ransom in treasure and a woman chained in the hold from a passenger ship that mysteriously disappeared at sea.

In 1940, as the Nazis sweep toward Lithuania, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara defies his own government and secretly issues thousands of visas to Jewish refugees desperate to flee. After the war, Sugihara is dismissed and disappears into obscurity. Three decades later, in Australia, Rachael Margolin, her father and her grandmother live disconnected from one another and haunted by unspoken tragedies. When Rachel announces her engagement to a Greek Orthodox man, it detonates a long-held secret.

When Darcie purchases several old suitcases at auction that had been abandoned in a railway station locker, she doesn't know what to expect. The first is disappointing but as she opens the second, she discovers rare and beautiful dresses for the 1940s, lovingly folded, and a notebook of designs to go with them. Written inside the cover is the name: Nathalie Leroux Why did she leave her most prized possessions at the station eighty years ago? Darcie's quest for answers will draw her into the world of the French resistance as she works to uncover the truth about a devastating wartime secret.