Book picks similar to
A Girl in Wartime by Maggie Ford


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Maggie's Kitchen


Caroline Beecham - 2016
    Her restaurant has become so popular that she simply can't find enough food to keep up with the demand for meals.With the help of twelve-year-old Robbie, a street urchin, and Janek, a Polish refugee dreaming of returning to his native land, she evades threats of closure from the Ministry. But breaking the rules is not the only thing she has to worry about. . . as Maggie fights to keep her beloved Kitchen open, she discovers that some secrets have the power to change everything.

Under an Amber Sky


Rose Alexander - 2017
    But when she stumbles into an old, run-down house on the Bay of Kotor she surprises even herself when she buys it.Surrounded by old furniture, left behind by the former inhabitants, Sophie becomes obsessed by a young Balkan couple when she discovers a bundle of letters from the 1940s in a broken roll-top desk. Letters that speak of great love, hope and a mystery Sophie can’t help but get drawn into.Days in Montenegro are nothing like she expected and as Sophie’s home begins to fill with a motley crew of lodgers the house by the bay begins to breathe again. And for Sophie, life seems to be restarting. But letting go of the past is easier said than done…

Sex, Lies & Champagne (Sex and Lies Book 8)


Kris Calvert - 2018
    Undercover for the last eighteen months, his assignment has been handed down personally from the Director of National Intelligence. Meeting with his contacts in the darkness of a global and elite, members-only sex club, Tristan spends his time not chasing women, but the origins of a dangerous Shadow Broker—a double agent selling U.S. weapon security codes to Russian intelligence. When Champagne magnate, Renè Lebleu reaches out to him, Tristan puts his duties on hold for two days, flying to his birthplace in France to meet a man he’s never seen—a father he’s never known. Upon arrival Tristan is filled with suspicion, but his animosity, forged by years of abandonment and lies, is quickly put on notice by his father’s trusted confidant and bold personal assistant, Henriette—Henry—Tribolet. Meeting his match in the gorgeous and intelligent Henry, Tristan finds it hard to keep up his typical and indifferent air. But Henry Tribolet sees straight through Tristan’s steely indifference to the heart of the real man—a man with an enormous capacity to forgive. A would-be Champagne heir discovering true love for the first time. Caught in a web of lies, Tristan must defend his innocence from a malicious ploy crafted by enemies and insiders while chasing the threats of foreign adversaries across the globe. When Tristan discovers the true nature of the family he never knew, he’ll fall deeper into the perilous world of International espionage than ever before—taking Henry with him. What begins with Champagne and trust, will end in deceit and murder.

Celia's Puppies


Claudia Hall Christian - 2009
    Over the course of her life, she gathered those who needed her special brand of love. Nine years after her death, Celia's puppies are facing themselves and their lives. Exciting, heart-warming, and always fun, Celia's Puppies is the second installment of the Denver Cereal. An Internet sensation, Denver Cereal is a serial fiction grounded in Uptown Denver, Colorado. "I am completely addicted to this series." - P. Cooper "Claudia Hall Christian brings life to each of these characters, a life that you long to be a part of, that you just can't get enough of." - C. Sund "I love Denver Cereal." - L. Richards Crunchy, sweet and always addicting - you deserve a little Denver Cereal in your life. DenverCereal.com

Kitty's Deputy


Tonya VanWinkle - 2018
    On her own for the first time, will she find the place where she belongs? Being a bounty hunter was all Milo thought he could ever be. Baggage from his past keeps him from the one thing his heart desires; a family. Will Kitty and Milo find common ground? Will the law bring them together or will their pasts and fears keep them apart?

Quail Crossings


Jennifer McMurrain - 2012
    Despite her grief, she still must fight to bring her remaining family through the already trying times of The Great Depression. Her father needs help on their struggling farm, Quail Crossings. She isn't thrilled that he's hired a young 18 year old boy who's caring for his three younger siblings. Surviving her grief, as well as the constant dust storms that plague the plains, will Dovie be able to put her pain aside to care for these children or be forever trapped in the darkness of the loss in her family?

Hard - Complete Series


Lucia Jordan - 2015
    The owner of a custom motorcycle shop, Jake has a bad reputation for being a womanizer, and possibly a criminal, but Beth has always had a bit of a crush on him. Wishing for a guy like Jake is dangerous, however, so she’s always kept her distance. When Beth and Jake are caught under the mistletoe and forced to kiss, her desire for the big, dark, tattooed biker blazes hotter than ever. When later that night Jake shows up on her doorstep asking for more, she can’t resist letting him in. His hungry kisses soon lead to a white-hot bout of passion that arouses Beth so much it frightens her. But when Jake explains that he’s a dominant, and wants her to be his submissive, Beth suddenly has doubts. She’s a nice girl, not a biker chick or a submissive. And if his strait-laced father finds out she’s sleeping with his son she will definitely lose her job. And when Jake unexpectedly makes a proposition, she must decide if it’s worth the risk?

Let Love Come Last


Taylor Caldwell - 1949
    . . Even when, brutally overriding her refined sensibility, he imprisoned her in a mansion of overwhelming opulence, an accursed house that brought all who lived there grief. . . Even when, before her eyes, she saw him destroying their children with his misguided indulgence. . . For here was a man more powerful, more truly gigantic than any she had ever known, a man she knew she would love until death. . .

Mayan Star


Howard Allan - 2018
    What we don’t know is why. Excavations at a recently discovered Mayan site near Valladolid in the Yucatan unearth a codex – the first to be discovered in over 50 years. A mangled body is found among the ruins. It belongs to Father Colvin McNeery, an expert on the Gospel of Matthew, the only Gospel to mention the Star of Bethlehem. The local police say he was killed by a jaguar. Dr. Isabel Reyes, renegade daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Mexico, is called away from her clinic to issue a death certificate. She wonders, when she sees the claw marks, what sort of jaguar is left-handed? Ex-rabbi and scholar Simon Press has just seen another of his controversial lectures on the spread of Christianity end in violence. He’s back at his hotel nursing a scotch when he gets the news that his friend and colleague, Colvin McNeery, is dead in the Yucatan. Press has always been resentful of Christianity’s success; what he finds in McNeery’s translation of the codex will allow him to get even. Detective First Class Benito Rufino of the Antiquities Police is pulled off a sting he’s spent nine months setting up, and ordered to Valladolid. He’s furious until he finds out why: a codex worth $500 million pesos is missing. Leon Cortes - devout Catholic and a direct descendant of the Conquistador - has become drug overlord for all of the Yucatan because he believes his faith requires him to mortify his soul as his Savior mortified his body. Now he’s ordered by the Vatican to find the codex and send it to them. The 1500 year old codex contains an account of a holy man, a savior who is born under a bright star to a virgin, performs miracles, dies a horrible death, and is resurrected. If McNeery’s translation of the codex is correct, then something is radically wrong with the conventional accounts of the European discovery of the Americas. Or - and this is the only other possibility - something is radically wrong with Christianity’s notion of itself. Mayan Star is mystery/thriller with a Borgesian twist.

The Duke's Library


Laura Cabrerizo
    Blending into the background suits her well as long as she can read. A less than clandestine adventure into the Duke's library creates a friendship she could never have imagined.Andres, Duke of Northumberland, wasn't expecting to find a stowaway in his library during the opening ball of the season but she intrigued him none the less. The more time he spends with her, the more he looks forward to seeing her. Perhaps it's time to take a wife after all.Does a wallflower with no means deserve a happily ever after?** Please Note: This is not a Georgette Heyer type ‘Traditional Regency Romance’ and as such is labeled under Historic Romance. Certain aspects of the book do not align with traditional Regency styling. It is simply a sweet romance that takes place between 1810 – 1820.

The Seven Sisters


Lucinda Riley - 2014
    Each of them is handed a tantalizing clue to her true heritage—a clue which takes Maia across the world to a crumbling mansion in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Once there, she begins to put together the pieces of her story and its beginnings.Eighty years earlier in Rio’s Belle Epoque of the 1920s, Izabela Bonifacio’s father has aspirations for his daughter to marry into the aristocracy. Meanwhile, architect Heitor da Silva Costa is devising plans for an enormous statue, to be called Christ the Redeemer, and will soon travel to Paris to find the right sculptor to complete his vision. Izabela—passionate and longing to see the world—convinces her father to allow her to accompany him and his family to Europe before she is married. There, at Paul Landowski’s studio and in the heady, vibrant cafes of Montparnasse, she meets ambitious young sculptor Laurent Brouilly, and knows at once that her life will never be the same again.In this sweeping, epic tale of love and loss—the first in a unique, spellbinding series of seven novels—Lucinda Riley showcases her storytelling talent like never before.

Always Come Home


Maureen Driscoll - 2014
     Colin Emerson, the Earl of Ridgeway, has two unmarried sisters and a mountain of debt incurred by his late father. He has no choice but to marry an heiress. It is most unfortunate, therefore, when he falls in love with a penniless governess. Ava Conway has been making her way in the world since the death of her father. She takes a position as the governess to Lord Ridgeway's sisters, but finds her growing attachment to the earl threatens his family's future. Bound by honor, torn by love, can Colin do right by his sisters while following his heart? WARNING: This book contains explicit sexual content and adult situations. You will not like this book if you don't like either of those two things.

When My Ship Comes In


Sue Wilsher - 2016
    Keep the family together, that's what her old mum always said. Put up and shut up. And that's what everyone else did around there. Essex, 1959. Flo earns her money as a scrubber, cleaning the cruise ships and dreaming of a day when she might sail away from her life in the Dwellings, the squalid tenements of Tilbury docks. Then the Blundell family are evicted from their home.Fred, Flo's husband, finds work at Monday's, a utopian factory town. Suddenly, it seems like everything is on the up for Flo Blundell and her children. Even Jeanie, Flo's sulking teenage daughter, seems to be thawing a little in her shiny new surroundings. But when Flo's abusive husband Fred starts drinking again, he jeopardises the family's chance to escape poverty for good.Flo is faced with a terrible decision. Must she fight to keep her family together? Or could she strive for the life of her dreams - the kind of life she could have when her ship comes in?

A Life Less Ordinary


Christopher G. Nuttall - 2013
    If you search for it, you will find it, or it will find you. Welcome to the magical world.Having lived all her life in Edinburgh, the last thing 25-year old Dizzy expected was to see a man with a real (if tiny) dragon on his shoulder. Following him, she discovered that she had stumbled from her mundane world into a parallel magical world, an alternate reality where dragons flew through the sky and the Great Powers watched over the world. Convinced that she had nothing to lose, she became apprenticed to the man with the dragon. He turned out to be one of the most powerful magicians in all of reality. But powerful dark forces had their eye on this young and inexperienced magician, intending to use her for the ultimate act of evil – the apocalyptic destruction of all reality. If Dizzy does not realise what is happening to her and the worlds around her, she won’t be able to stop their plan. A plan that will ravage both the magical and mundane worlds, consuming everything and everyone in fire.