He's been her best friend since she was a child, and she can't imagine life without him. What shocks her, however, is the reaction of her mother and father. Annabel knows that her parents disapprove of her forthright opinions, but their displeasure is both unexpected and unaccountable. As they permit the engagement, however, she decides to put it out of her mind. But before she can be married, tragedy strikes, and only then does Annabel learn of the shocking secret that her parents have kept from her. Determined to learn more, she travels to Durham on a personal search that will change everything.

    A heartwarming family saga set in Victorian era Cornwall. When Maggie arrives in Polsinney Harbour she finds work on Rachel Tallack's farm, where Rachel's fisherman son, Brice, starts to take an interest in the young woman. Maggie's hopes for the future are dashed when Rachel discovers her well-kept secret. Faced with disapproval from her neighbours, and Brice, Maggie finds herself all alone once more. But then a proposal that could solve all of her problems comes from a very unexpected source. Can Maggie find love and acceptance in Polsinney Harbour, and will the dangers of a cruel sea threaten her lasting happiness? A heartwarming and gripping tale of courage and love in Victorian times, from the bestselling author of the much-loved Apple Tree Saga and Cast a Long Shadow.

    

    Carl Voigt had been a WWI prisoner of war who had married a cockney girl and never gone back. Now widowed, he and Kate were part of the London life of the square with all its rumbustious and colorful characters. Then came the war.Suddenly it seemed the Voigts were outcasts because if their German blood. When Carl was interned, Kate's only support was her best friend Carrie, and Toby, the R.A.F. pilot whom she loved. Finally when Toby was killed, and even Carrie turned against her, she found herself pregnant and totally alone.Late one Christmas Eve, during the Blitz, she was approached by a wounded sailor asking for lodgings. Leon Emmerson, like Kate, was also a lonely misfit because of his parentage. It was to be the beginning of a new friendship, of startling and dramatic events in Kate's life. And as the war progressed, as the Londoners fought to help each other while their city was bombed and burned, so the rifts in the community were healed, and Kate and those she loved became, once more, part of Magnolia Square.

    Bess Hardemon, a tough and canny young teacher living in the mid-nineteenth century, is determined to make a difference at her new school, Priors Heath. Under the austere gaze of the Reverend Carnegie and his deputy, Miss Simms, the young girls remain underfed and unstimulated -- until the arrival of the bright, motivated young Bess.At the cost of her own chance of finding love, Bess remains trapped by her duty, a confinement echoed a century later by Sarah, a teacher at the modern-day Priors Heath who must make her own choice between her duty to her pupils and her efforts to save a broken marriage.

    In New York Times bestselling author Tracy Chevalier’s newest historical saga, she introduces Honor Bright, a modest English Quaker who moves to Ohio in 1850, only to find herself alienated and alone in a strange land. Sick from the moment she leaves England, and fleeing personal disappointment, she is forced by family tragedy to rely on strangers in a harsh, unfamiliar landscape. Nineteenth-century America is practical, precarious, and unsentimental, and scarred by the continuing injustice of slavery. In her new home Honor discovers that principles count for little, even within a religious community meant to be committed to human equality. However, drawn into the clandestine activities of the Underground Railroad, a network helping runaway slaves escape to freedom, Honor befriends two surprising women who embody the remarkable power of defiance. Eventually she must decide if she too can act on what she believes in, whatever the personal costs. A powerful journey brimming with color and drama, The Last Runaway is Tracy Chevalier’s vivid engagement with an iconic part of American history.

    Marvellous Ways is a ninety-year-old woman who's lived alone in a remote creek for nearly all her life. Recently she's taken to spending her days sitting on the steps of her caravan with a pair of binoculars. She's waiting for something - she's not sure what, but she'll know it when she sees it. Freddy Drake is a young soldier left reeling by the war. He's agreed to fulfil a dying friend's last wish and hand-deliver a letter to the boy's father in Cornwall. But Freddy's journey doesn't go to plan, and sees him literally wash up in Marvellous' creek, broken in body and spirit. When Marvellous comes to his aid, an unlikely friendship grows between the two. Can Freddy give Marvellous what she needs to say goodbye to the world, and can she give him what he needs to go on?

    But everything changes when Abbie is twelve and their emotional, spirited mother casts them into a crisis for which no one is prepared. Six years later the Morris family have rebuilt their lives, and when Abbie and Beatie, Abbie's adored elder sister, set off for the county fair, the world seems a good place. But their new-found happiness is not to last. A chance encounter with Louis, a personable, handsome stranger, leads to tragedy and has repercussions that threaten to destroy Abbie's peace of mind for ever. Abbie struggles to forget what happened that night, to get on with her life, but when she meets charming, honourable Arthur - and re-encounters Louis - it becomes clear that she might never recover from the night they stayed so long at the fair...

    Matty has had to care for her three younger sisters ever since their mother’s death ten years ago. She and the girls’ beloved father have worked hard to keep the family together and now it’s time to celebrate as Matty turns eighteen. But their joy is short-lived when tragedy suddenly strikes and their father disappears on his way to London. The sisters have no way of knowing what has happened to him – only that he hasn’t returned home. With little money left they’re now forced to battle life’s misfortunes alone…

    She wants cheerful fires, snow-filled landscapes and pleasant company, all of which seems entirely possible. But her dreams of a perfect Christmas are thrown into chaos with the arrival of Sylvia Morwell, a girl who is universally disliked by everybody who knows her. Unfortunately, that includes most of Harry's guests and suddenly, the atmosphere could could be cut with a knife! As uncomfortable as this may be, things take a turn for the worst when her unwelcome house guest is murdered, done to death with a poisoned plum pie. Once again Harry, Aubrey, Charlie and Darcy must delve deep to discover the killer that lurks in their midst. And they must move fast before Harry's Christmas is entirely ruined!

    Fleeing her fanatical republican family, Molly O’Dowd arrives nearly penniless in London at the end of the nineteenth century. Plunged into the world of East End gambling houses and brothels, Molly invests what little money she has in a typing course, her only way out. This investment will lead her on the path to establishing herself as a woman of power and means.From the rough-and-tumble world of the London docks to the luxurious hotels and restaurants of the fashionable West End, Molly captures the temper of the times – the unrest of the labouring classes, the courage of the suffragette movement, the ravages of the First World War. Molly wins and loses in the tempestuous world of the capital but her energy and determination never flag and tides change when she meets a man who could match her in business… and in love. This rags-to-riches historical romance is perfect for fans of Lily Graham, Natalie Meg Evans and Fiona McIntosh.

    Shortly before Dee dies, she tells her son, Thomas, that she thinks her death is a punishment. Thomas, whose own emotional life is complicated, tries to piece together his parents' lives in order to make sense of his mother's words.

    In the New York society of the 1870s, however, only those with old money can achieve the status of the elite, and it is here that the sisters seem doomed to failure.Nan's new governess, Laura Testvalley, herself an outsider, takes pity on their plight and launches them instead on the unsuspecting British aristocracy. Lords, dukes, marquesses and MPs, it seems, not only appreciate beauty, but also the money that New York's nouveaux riches can supply.A love story of love and marriage among the old and new moneyed classes, The Buccaneers is a delicately perceptive portrayal of a world on the brink of change.

    

    They are surrounded by a glimmering cast of characters, from the unreliable but dashing rake Jeffery de Guere to the lovely and shy Miss Amy Lewis. And, of course, the Stanbroke girls: Lady Isabella, romantic and dreamy, yet surprisingly practical, and Lady Elizabeth, her older sister, a heroine of great sense and wit as well as beauty. As these characters dance, court, conspire, love, and chase their way through some of the most fashionable spots of England and the continent, we join their elegant circle for the sparkling, sophisticated romp. As always, Fiona Hill brings a fresh and engaging liveliness to the world of Regency manners, making The Stanbroke Girls a triumphant delight to read.