They managed splendidly - and then came the war. Tim Parkes became Gunner Parkes and Aunt May spent most of her nights in the Walworth air raid shelters with Tim keeping an eye on her whenever he was able.When he got posted to Suffolk he wasn't too pleased - Suffolk was Country, not like London at all. But in fact there were a lot of things about Sheldham that reminded him of home - the Walworth evacuees for a start. Those of them that weren't creating havoc in the Suffolk village were creating havoc in Tim's life. Minnie Beavers - ex-Camberwell - was fifteen, pert, pretty, and wildly in love with Tim. She was determined to inveigle him into marriage the minute she was old enough. Tim was equally determined to escape and choose his own girl.By the time Tim had gone away to fight the war, and Minnie had joined the WAAF, a great many things had changed in both their lives.

    With few clues as to her identity she endures a childhood of loneliness and loss. At eighteen she applies for a post as nanny with the family of a Captain Fairford, a soldier in Ambala, north India and his highly strung wife Susan. Lily is drawn into the emotional life of the Fairford family and adores her charge, two year old Cosmo.When, in 1907, Captain Fairford orders a new Daimler car, it is brought out by a young motor mechanic, Sam Ironside. Sam and Lily fall deeply in love, and it is only later that Lily learns that Sam is married and feels utterly betrayed. When Cosmo is later sent home to school, Lily finds another post with a Dr. McBride and his invalid wife, in a beautiful Himalayan hill station. The place is idyllic, and Lily settles for a quiet life. However, she is unprepared for the pain and misunderstandings that follow and force her to run from everything she has known . . ."Where Earth Meets Sky" takes us from Edwardian England and the British Raj, through the darkness of the Great War to the glamour of Brooklands Race Track in the 1920s. Spanning two continents, it is a story of enduring friendships and two hearts which cannot be kept apart.

    But Tilly is determined to make something of her life and, rather than admit the truth to her poverty-stricken family, she sets out once more in search of employment.Her journey takes her to the London law courts, a grim parsonage in one of the most notorious parts of the East End and a house of ill-repute. But when she falls for the dangerous charms of Barnaby Palgrave, Tilly soon finds that her troubles have only just begun ...

    Jill and Steve are making wedding plans and Doreen waits patiently at home for Phil's next leave. But the Second World War is separating loved ones forever and the future looks bleak... Then Rosie O'Grady arrives in Liverpool from Ireland and Molly and Nellie are in for a treat. With her sparkling blue eyes and youthful charm, sweet Rosie O'Grady is like a breath of fresh air. Her direct approach to life soon has everyone crying with laughter; and Molly's son, Tommy, who used to think girls were nothing but a nuisance, is in for a pleasant surprise...

    The day came when she was so hungry, so tired and worried, that she was reduced to going to Akersfield market and asking Dick Fletcher for help - Dick who had loved her years ago, who was now running his own successful market garden - and who was engaged to someone else. It was Dick who took her back home to her village in the dales, gave her a job, helped her to gain her self-respect again. But the time came when she knew she must stand on her own - make a life for herself and her daughters without him, and use all her courage and determination to become successful. It was to take many years, and all the tragedy of the 1914 war before Eleanor was able to repay Dick Fletcher for the great debt she owed him.

    In his blind jealous rage he later gives away the baby to gypsy Rona Parrish, summoned to help with the delivery. Kathleen, frenzied with grief, is soon after locked away in an asylum. Rejected by her father, the little girl begins her new life with only a valuable brooch pinned to her shawl as a clue to her true origins. Named after Rona's own mother, the lovely raven-haired Starlena grows up in ignorance of her true parentage and vast inheritance, believing her birthplace to be the beautiful Whistledown Valley. And Rona, always afraid, stays watchful over the years for any sign that someone might track Starlena down - someone who wishes her harm...

    Perfect for fans of Katie Flynn and Annie Groves.Maeve Brannigan is only eighteen when she leaves her rural home in County Donegal and moves to Birmingham, where she falls in love with handsome Brendan Hogan. But married life isn’t as idyllic as she’d imagined, and when Maeve falls pregnant with their first child, she soon realises that Brendan isn’t the man she thought he was.Saddled with a violent husband and with two young’uns needing her protection, Maeve bears her life as best she can. After a particularly vicious attack, she is forced to flee back to Ireland – but her presence is greeted with open hostility by the close-knit catholic community that she was once so eager to escape. Driven away to face her abusive husband, Maeve’s future looks bleak. Will she find the strength to break free and make the prospect of a better life a reality rather than a distant dream?

    It's during another storm fifteen years later that her father and brothers are lost and Daisy rescues William, heir of a wealthy Southwick family, with whom she falls in love. Soon, as her reward for saving him, Daisy is working for William's irascible aunt, while local lad Alf continues to court her. Warned off by Daisy's grandmother, William denies his own feelings and so it will be many years later, after much hardship and turmoil, that Daisy finds the happiness she deserves, amidst the drama of the Great War.

    Hollinthwaite, however, has other ideas and when he forces the two to part Rob is sent away to school while Alena must start work in the local bobbin mill. Life is hard and her love for Rob severely tested. Torn between two men, her indecision is heightened by the knowledge of a tragic secret. Dolly Sutton has problems of a more intimate nature, while shy and unassuming, Sandra Myers finds herself an unlikely campaigner against Hollinthwaite’s destructive plans for the village when he ruthlessly sacks the man she loves.

    Celia Lytton is the beautiful and strong-willed daughter of wealthy aristocrats and she is used to getting her way. She moves through life making difficult and often dangerous decisions that affect herself and others-her husband, Oliver, and their children; the destitute Sylvia Miller, whose life is transformed by Celia's intrusion; as well as Oliver's daunting elder sister, who is not all she appears to be; and Sebastian Brooke, for whom Celia makes the most dangerous decision of all. Set against the tumultuous backdrop of London and New York in the First World War, No Angel is, as British Good Housekeeping wrote, "an absorbing page-turner, packed with believable characters and satisfyingly extreme villains, eccentrics, and manipulators." Readers of Maeve Binchy, Barbara Taylor Bradford, and Anita Shreve will fall in love with this epic, un-put-downable novel.With more than 3.5 million copies sold, Penny Vincenzi is one of the world's preeminent writers of popular fiction-and American readers no longer have to miss out on the fun. With the publication of No Angel, a novel introducing the engaging cast of characters in the Lytton family, Overlook opens a thrilling new dimension to this author's already illustrious career.

    It is also the story of the entanglements and rivalries of the two families who separately employ Alice and Tom.

    Three women from very different backgrounds meet when they find themselves on Bristol Temple Meads station waiting for the return of their loved ones. Edna's fiance , Colin, comes home crippled. Charlotte's doctor husband, who was a loving and gentle father, returns a violent, disturbed man with no love for her and even less for their children. Polly, who is waiting for her GI boyfriend Aaron, is once again disappointed when he doesn't arrive. Adjusting to men who are very changed and, in Polly's case, to no man at all, is the core of this enthralling novel. However, during the war years, the women have had to cope. They too have changed and they harbour secrets that would be best kept.

    The regime is cruel, and if it weren't for Miss Beau - who comes in every week to teach the children their letters - and her young friend Daisy, Sunday's life wouldn't be worth living. And now she's attracted the unwelcome attention of the workhouse master. With no choice but to leave behind everything she knows, Sunday strikes out on her own to make her fortune and to fulfil her promise to come back for Daisy. And, secretly she dreams of finding the long-lost mother who gave her away.But she's about to discover that, try as she might to escape, the brutal world of the workhouse will not let her go without a fight . . .

    Sophie Lefèvre must keep her family safe while her adored husband, Édouard, fights at the front. When their town falls to the Germans, Sophie is forced to serve them every evening at her hotel. From the moment the new Kommandant sets eyes on Sophie’s portrait—painted by her artist husband—a dangerous obsession is born. Almost a century later in London, Sophie’s portrait hangs in the home of Liv Halston, a wedding gift from her young husband before his sudden death. After a chance encounter reveals the portrait’s true worth, a battle begins over its troubled history and Liv’s world is turned upside all over again.

    But his subject seems more interested in finding out about Robert's past than he does in revealing his own. For years, Robert has refused to discuss his past. After the war ended, he refused to go to reunions, believing in some way that denying the killing and the deaths of his friends and fellow soldiers would mean he wouldn't be defined by the experience. Suddenly, he can't keep the memories from overtaking him. But can he trust his memories and can we believe what other people tell us about theirs?Moving between the present and past, between France and Italy, New York and London, this is a powerful story about love and war, memory and desire, the relationship between the body and the mind. Compelling and full of suspense, Where My Heart Used to Beat is a tender, brutal and thoughtful portrait of a man and a century, which asks whether, given the carnage we've witnessed and inflicted over the past one hundred years, people can ever be the same.