Book picks similar to
Girls in Tin Hats by Annie Murray
annie-murray
british
historical
in-the-book-rack
The Jam Factory Girls
Mary Wood - 2020
Caring for her siblings and working long hours at Swift's Jam Factory in London’s Bermondsey is exhausting. Thankfully her lifelong friendship with Dot helps to smooth over life’s rough edges.When Elsie and Dot meet Millie Swift, they are nervous to be in the presence of the bosses’ daughter. Over time, they are surprised to feel so drawn to her, but should two East End girls be socializing in such circles?When disaster strikes, it binds the women in ways they could never imagine. Long-held secrets are revealed that could change all their lives...
The Bobby Girls
Johanna Bell - 2019
While their men fight in France, at home in Britain women seize the opportunity to make a difference . . .Maggie lives a life of privilege and plenty. But she's hiding a dark secret that has the power to ruin her.Annie just wants to settle down with the man she loves. But she might never see him again.Sarah is a passionate Suffragette. But all her dreams are about to be put on hold.Irene is clever, beautiful and proud. But her pride could cost her everything.Four women - only one thing in common: they have all signed up for the Women Police Volunteers.As they work to find their feet on the beat, will their friendship get them through the darkest of times?A gritty, uplifting new saga series about the first ever female police officers, set at the outbreak of the First World War - perfect for fans of Dilly Court, Daisy Styles and Call the Midwife.
One Perfect Witness
Pat Young - 2018
On each path, a boy, one carrying a gun. When their paths cross, a shot is fired and a boy dies. That leaves two one killer and one perfect witness.This killer will stop at nothing to make sure the witness says nothing. Difficult for most people, even for someone who’s been guarding a secret of his own for five years. What if the witness decides he’s been silent too long?
Sometimes even the unspeakable must be spoken, if we can find the words.
Pat Young is the best-selling author of the psychological thrillers Till The Dust Settles and I Know Where You Live. One Perfect Witness is a suspenseful and gripping thriller which will appeal to fans of authors like Mark Edwards, Cara Hunter and Rachel Abbott.
When the Music Stopped
Beryl Matthews - 2017
Twins Lester and Lillia Holdsworth are destined for the stage. Lester is a brilliant pianist; Lillia a magnificent singer. But their cruel father has other ideas for their future. Lester is sent to a military academy, while Lillia must marry Lord Dalton – a self-righteous, pompous friend of her father’s looking for a young wife to give him an heir.Yet their plans to defy their father’s wishes are put on hold when war breaks out in 1914. Suddenly Lester is flying planes for the Royal Flying Corps and Lillia is using her skills as a nurse to help those wounded at home, and then abroad. For both twins, the fighting brings hardships and difficult choices. They wait in hope, like the rest of Europe, for the war to end and the music to start again.
The Collier's Wife
Chrissie Walsh - 2020
When Amy visits her husband Hugh at Beckett's Park Hospital, he doesn't recognise her. Broken after serving four devastating years in the First World War, Hugh is a shadow of the man he once was. Can he ever again be the man Amy knew and loved?Barnsborough, 1912. The first time Hugh and Amy meet, the connection between them is instant and electric. While a librarian's assistant and a collier might not be the most conventional pair, the two come together over a love of books that quickly turns into more. Neither suspects their families have secrets that threaten to tear them apart...True love's path is rarely simple... but can Hugh and Amy find their way back to each other?
River People
Margaret Lukas - 2019
River People is a novel of inspiration, love, loss, and renewal.
Frontline
Hilary Jones - 2021
From wars to a pandemic, the discovery of penicillin to the birth of the NHS, successive generations of the Burnett family are at the vanguard of life-saving developments in medicine.Frontline is the story of an aristocrat's daughter who joins the war effort as a nurse. In a field hospital in rural France she meets Will, a dockworker's son serving as a stretcher-bearer. As rumours of an armistice begin to circulate, so too does a mysterious respiratory illness that soldiers are referring to as the 'Spanish flu'.
For the Love of Old Bones: and Other Stories
Michael Jecks - 2012
THE CORONER’S TALE In the remote Devonshire town of Crediton, a young girl is found dead in an alleyway, raped and murdered. As the local Bailiff and a visiting knight investigate the crime, it comes to light that the bailiff holds an incriminating secret – one that has the potential to place this agent of the government on the wrong side of the law. FOR THE LOVE OF OLD BONES A group of monks journeying from Launceston Abbey across the wild wastelands of Dartmoor are waylaid by brigands. During the brawl, their abbot is put to death at the blade of a knife, but the murderer neglected to steal his money filled purse. When the local bailiff discovers that the group are conducting a holy relic overseas to France, he begins to suspect that there are murkier motivations at play. THE AMOROUS ARMOURER A blacksmith is found dead in his lodgings, the door locked from the inside. As the town’s meticulously minded bailiff goes about his investigation, a veritable rogue’s gallery of culprits drift in and out of focus - but the guilty party is the least suspect of all. A CLERICAL ERROR One of the king’s forresters lies dead in a gully on the moor, his head smashed in with a rock, and the only witness to the murder being the forrester’s loyal mastiff, who stands vigil over his master’s body. As the list of suspects increases with every local rivalry which comes to light, the outcome of the case will surprise all involved. DANCE OF DEATH 1348, the year of the Great Death. Refugees flood into the city of Exeter from the plague-ravaged countryside surrounding the city. A man and a young boy from the village of Rookford arrive separately, yet both share knowledge of a horrifying secret and come to the realisation that even in these times of turmoil, the past is inescapable. Praise for Michael Jecks: "An instant classic British spy novel - mature, thoughtful, and intelligent ... but also raw enough for our modern times. Highly recommended." Lee Child, author of the Reacher series "More magic by the master of the medieval” - Quintin Jardine "Michael Jecks is a national treasure" -
Scotland on Sunday
“A textbook example of how to blend action and detection in a historical” -
Publishers Weekly
Michael Jecks is the author of the bestselling Knights Templar series, comprising thirty-two novels starring Baldwin de Furnshill. Fields of Glory is the first novel in a new trilogy, set around the Hundred Years' War. A regular speaker at library and literary events, he is a past Chairman of the Crime Writers' Association and a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund at Exeter University. He was shortlisted for the Harrogate/Theakston’s Old Peculier prize for the best crime novel of the year 2007, the year Allan Guthrie won. He lives with his wife, children and dogs in northern Dartmoor. To find out more visit his website http://www.michaeljecks.com, follow him on twitter @michaeljecks, or find him on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Michael.Jecks... Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com.
The Girl with the Scarlet Ribbon: An emotional and gripping World War 2 historical novel
Suzanne Goldring - 2022
The Viscount Besieged
Elizabeth Bailey - 1996
Will Isadora follow her dreams, or save her family…?1798, EnglandIsadora Alvescot has always dreamed of becoming a famous actress on the stage.But when her beloved papa suddenly dies, her family’s future is thrown into turmoil.With no immediate male heir, the family estate has been bequeathed to a distant relative – a viscount named Lord Roborough.And now Isadora is being pressured to consider matrimony.When Lord Roborough arrives, Isadora is desperate to do all she can to find out his intentions and determine whether he is a friend or a foe…Will he allow her family to remain living on the estate? Will Isadora still be free to pursue her dreams of acting?Or will she be forced to bend her will to another and become a wife?
When The Boys Come Home
Pamela Evans - 2007
But when owner Dai Morgan is killed in an air raid, his daughter Megan is determined to continue in her father's footsteps and she braves the ravaged streets alone to do his milk round by horse and cart. Megan finds comfort in the knowledge that her twin girls are tucked away in a Welsh village, but she worries about her husband, Will, abroad with his platoon. And when Will's best friend, Doug Reynolds, returns, wounded and disfigured, she doesn't hesitate to take the poor man in. However, Doug is not the man she thinks he is. And when the boys come home, Megan has battle scars she can't allow Will to see...
Our Last Letter
Liz Trenow - 2020
Your letters are a lifeline and there is something I need to tell you. Please write, please, please.1937, England. Kathleen Motts, with her flame-red curls and gift for geometry, grew up just across the water from the secretive RAF base, Bawdsey Manor, on the bleak and beautiful east coast. When the stars overhead turn red as warplanes surge towards her home, Kath is desperate to do her bit, enlisting as one of the first female radar operators, helping to keep the brave pilots safe in troubled skies.Vikram Mackensie is quiet, exceptional at maths and music, and always the outsider. When he’s recruited for a top-secret war project at Bawdsey Manor, Vic’s chance to belong has arrived at last. He may only be half-British, but he vows to help the country he loves.From their first meeting on windy cliffs above a rocky beach, Kath arrives like a blaze of warmth into Vic’s grey life and turns the colour back on. As the war intensifies, so do Kath and Vic’s feelings for each other. They may have grown up on different sides of the world – but if the war can’t keep them apart, nothing will.But fate intervenes when Vic is posted to America, and Kath is left heartbroken and alone. As the silence between them grows, so does the secret that Kath is holding… As the sky falls around Kath, will she ever have more than one last letter?A heartbreaking and gripping novel, Our Last Letter shows that even in humanity’s darkest moments, light and love will find a way.
Kitty McKenzie: Victorian saga: Book 1
AnneMarie Brear - 2014
Evicted from their resplendent home in the fashionable part of York after her parents’ deaths, Kitty must fight the legacy of bankruptcy and homelessness to secure a home for her and her siblings. Through sheer willpower and determination she grabs opportunities with both hands from working on a clothes and rag stall in the market to creating a teashop for the wealthy. Her road to happiness is fraught with obstacles of hardship and despair, but she refuses to let her dream of a better life for her family die. She soon learns that love and loyalty brings its own reward.
Another Heartbeat in the House
Kate Beaufoy - 2015
One home that binds them together.When Edie Chadwick travels to Ireland to close up her uncle’s lakeside lodge, it’s as much to escape the burden of guilt she’s carrying as to break loose from the smart set of 1930’s London.The old house is full of memories – not just her own, but those of a woman whose story has been left to gather dust in a chest in the attic: a handwritten memoir inscribed with an elegant signature . . . Eliza DruryAs she turns the pages of the manuscript, Edie uncovers secrets she could never have imagined: an exciting tale of ambition, hardship, love and tragedy – a story that has waited a lifetime to be told. . ."A delightful story, rich, engrossing and vividly told" Rachel Hore"A compelling, atmospheric story brimming with period detail about two feisty, independent heroines who will steal your heart" Cathy Kelly"With a marvellously evocative setting, strong and believable lead characters and a pacey plot, Another Heartbeat in the House is a thoroughly compelling love story" Liz Trenow
The Runaway Sisters
Ann Bennett - 2020
I saw the first glimmers of daylight over the roofs from the window before I heard it. We were used to air raids by then and I recognised German engines, but something felt different this time. They were closer than I’d ever heard them before…Devon, 1940: When fifteen-year-old Daisy is evacuated from her home in London, she knows she must look after her younger sister Peggy. She is the only one who can reassure Peggy that life will go back to normal, reading to her from their one battered children’s book, ensuring she takes the cough medicine their mother tucked in the pocket of her gas mask bag.But when the sisters’ new home is suddenly bombed, they are taken into the countryside, and Daisy quickly realises that not everyone at home is on the right side of the war. Forced to work in fields alongside orphan children, she finds herself drawn to a young boy called John, who has tried and failed to escape many times before.Then Peggy gets sick and Daisy knows that, to save her life, they must run away. But now Peggy is not the only one Daisy is desperate to protect. As war rages all around, Daisy learns that sometimes you have to sacrifice everything if you want to save the people you love. And that the choices you make in your darkest days will affect your family for generations to come…Perfect for fans of Lisa Wingate, Diney Costeloe and Shirley Dickson, The Runaway Sisters is a tale of heartwrenching loss and uplifting courage. It’s a story about family, and the light that can be found in the dark clouds of war.