In this dazzling debut novel of love and secret histories, a young woman unearths the story of a lost Shanghai pencil company and a hidden family ability which will alter the path of her life forever.

Monica Tsai spends most days on her computer coding for a program that seeks to connect strangers online. A self-confessed recluse, she finds herself escaping into a digital world, counting the days until she can return home to her beloved grandparents. They are now in their nineties, and she worries about them – especially her grandmother Yun whose memory has begun to fade.

Monica has become intent on tracking down her grandmother Yun’s long-lost cousin, Meng, before it’s too late. In her search, Monica connects with a young woman archivist who presents her with a single pencil that holds a clue to a hidden family history. Through this discovery Monica comes to learn of her grandmother’s years in Shanghai, working at the Phoenix Pencil Company.

As WWII raged outside their door, Yun and Meng came into a power unique to the women in their family: the ability to reclaim stories from the pencils they were written with. But when government officials uncovered their secret ability, they were both forced into a life of espionage, betraying other people’s stories to survive. These shocking revelations set Monica on a path that will change all their lives in ways she can scarcely imagine.

At once a sweeping family epic and a powerful love story with deep emotional resonance, Allison King’s brilliantly inventive debut novel pushes us to question how well we really know our own stories and the many beguiling ways they can connect our lives.

Nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris arrives in New York City in the summer of 1940 with nothing but a sewing machine and a heretofore unindulged taste for adventure. Finding employment as seamstress at the Lily Playhouse, a charmingly down-at-heel Manhattan revue, Vivian quickly becomes the toast of the showgirls, transforming the tat only fit for the cheap seats into creations for goddesses. Adventure and opportunity blossom on every corner of this strange wartime city of girls, and Vivian and her girlfriends mean to down New York to its last drop. But there are hard lessons to be learned, and bitterly regrettable mistakes to be made. Vivian learns that to live the life she wants, she must live many lives, ceaselessly and ingeniously making them new.

Spanning ninety years as one family of gifted Korean women's lives are upended under Japanese imperialism, Honey in the Wound is a powerful and sweeping debut novel about a mysteriously gifted Korean family confronting the brutality of the Japanese empire.

A sister disappears and returns as a tiger. A mother's voice compels the truth from any tongue. A granddaughter divines secrets in others' dreams.

Spanning ninety years as one family is displaced across Asia, this novel follows Young-Ja, who finds herself struggling to survive after her family is killed by Japanese soldiers. The magical gift that once brought her joy - the ability to infuse her cooking with her feelings: love, peace, delight - transforms into something more powerful as her sorrow and anger seeps into her confections.

When her talent is noticed by a Korean resistance fighter, she's taken to Manchuria where she becomes enmeshed in a network of spies at a teahouse favoured by Japanese officials. Haunted at every turn by the spectre of Japanese soldiers, she endures horrors and brutality at the hands of the Imperial Army.

With spellbinding inter-generational sweep and atmospheric magical realism, Honey in the Wound explores the ways colonialism forces one family to transform, and ultimately survive.

Paris, 1939: Gazing out at the glittering skyline, Evelina clutches the letter from her love in shaking hands. "I know I do not deserve you, my darling, but I pray that you will change your mind. You have my heart, and I hope that nothing will keep us apart..."

London, present day. Blake gazes down at a scrap of shimmering silver velvet attached to a faded dress design. They were left by her great-grandmother at Hope's House, a home for unmarried mothers, and now that her beloved grandmother has passed, the designer's signature is the only clue Blake has about her biological family.

Armed with a plane ticket, a Paris address and the details of a handsome fashion curator named Henri, Blake is determined to find out the truth about her talented great-grandmother Evelina's life. Perhaps doing so will help Blake get her old spark for designing back, after her dreams have sat forgotten for so long.

Soon Blake is walking down the Champs-Élysées and enjoying intimate dinners with Henri, who is researching Evelina's work as one of Paris' most celebrated designers, whose bold designs rivalled Coco Chanel's. Soon Henri and Blake grow closer, uncovering Evelina's legacy, and her forbidden romance that set the fashion world ablaze.

As Blake discovers the devastating choice that caused Evelina to flee the most romantic city in the world, she wonders if she, too, could do the impossible and risk everything for love with Henri. Or will the fallout of Evelina's heart-wrenching past drive Blake back home?

A completely addictive and emotional novel about family secrets, forbidden love and having the courage to follow your dreams. Perfect for fans of Santa Montefiore, Lucinda Riley and Victoria Hislop.

In her latest novel, Wendy Louise Bardsley has tackled the horrors of the Crimean war with great empathy and, at the same time, has vividly described the pioneer work of Florence Nightingale, as a nurse in that conflict. Florence Nightingale had a calling that took her away from a comfortable life and a marriage proposal to a barracks hospital in Scutari, where she and her group of chosen nurses, would tend sick, wounded and maimed soldiers in the most foul of conditions. Florence had a great supporter for her mission, Sidney Herbert, the Minister for War, and between them, with steadfast perseverance, they secured the supplies of food, medicines and other essentials, that made life bearable for the hospital's patients and staff. In doing so, Florence Nightingale brought a glimmer of hope and light to the lives of those in darkest despair. As the Crimean war ended Florence Nightingale was honoured to receive commendation for her work from Queen Victoria, which signalled the start of a lifelong campaign to enhance the much-treasured nursing profession. FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE: A LIGHT IN DARKEST CRIMEA is a stunning novel that will bring to the reader the stark reality of war.

Nothing about Semiramis's upbringing could have foretold her legacy or the power she would come to wield. A female ruler, once an orphan raised on the outskirts of an empire - certainly no one in Ancient Assyria would bend to her command willingly. This is the epic tale of a woman who knew if she wanted power, she would have to claim it. No one was coming to save her.

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD AND THE PULITZER PRIZE.

The pampered daughter of a wealthy Georgian plantation owner of Irish descent, sixteen-year-old Scarlett O’Hara soon realizes that young men can’t resist her charms, despite her forthright manners and her refusal to embrace her mother’s ladylike ways. Her romantic intrigues lead her to an early marriage, but when the war between the Union and the Southern States breaks out and she is left a young widow, Scarlett’s life is turned upside down, and she finds herself embroiled, together with the world surrounding her, in a long struggle for survival.

Both a coming-of-age tale and a historical epic, Gone with the Wind is regarded as one of the great American novels, and is perhaps one of the most popular stories in the Western canon. Famously inspiring the iconic 1939 Oscar-winning film starring Vivien Leigh as Scarlett and Clark Gable as the rakish but cynical Rhett Butler, it is Margaret Mitchell’s only published novel, and a living testament to the irrepressible resilience of the American spirit.

Part of Alma Classics Evergreens Series.