Shortlisted for The Romantic Novelists' Association Historical Romantic Novel Award 2021 The world was crumbling, but her love stayed strong November 1915. For young housemaid, Anwen Rhys, life is hard in the Welsh mining village of Dorcalon, deep in the Rhymney Valley. She cares for her ill mother and beloved younger sister Sara, all while shielding them from her father's drunken, violent temper. Anwen comforts herself with her love for childhood sweetheart, Idris Hughes, away fighting in the Great War. Yet when Idris returns, he is a changed man; no longer the innocent boy she loved, he is harder, more distant, quickly breaking off their engagement. And when tragedy once again strikes her family, Anwen's heart is completely broken. But when an explosion at the pit brings unimaginable heartache to Dorcalon, Anwen and Idris put their feelings aside to unite their mining community. In the midst of despair, can Anwen find hope again? And will she ever find the happiness she deserves? A beautiful, emotional and heart-breaking saga set in the Welsh Valleys of the Great War that fans of Rosie Goodwin and Sheila Newbury will love. Readers are falling in love with Francesca Capaldi's debut novel: 'this is a really emotional book...I really enjoyed this book and fully recommend it. Worth all the stars' Reader Review 'worthy of a 5 star rating... a good book that commands your attention and emotions.' Reader Review 'A lovely debut saga!... Great story line and wonderful period details.' Reader Review 'I loved this book... I would heartily recommend it for anyone who enjoys family saga or historical fiction.' Reader Review 'an all-engrossing story that swept me along with it. It is a wonderful historical saga... With a hint of romance... It had me go through an array of emotions' Reader Review 'this is such a warm-hearted book... I would ask all readers to read this book. I loved it' Reader Review

The first novel in Jessica Stirling's enthralling saga series is set in 1930s England, where an East End girl with ideas of her own makes a surprising journey from the back streets of Shadwell to the salons of Mayfair. Susan Hooper is private secretary to bestselling author, Vivian Proudfoot. Well-spoken and well-read, she soon learns how to hold her own with London's literary sophisticates. But the attentions of Mercer Hughes, a handsome agent with a notorious reputation and a shady past, are more than a docker's daughter can cope with and she finds herself falling reluctantly in love. She is soon cut off from her father and at loggerheads with her idealistic brother Ronnie and his gadabout wife Breda. Even her old friend, newspaperman Danny Cahill, is shocked at the circles in which Susan finds herself where pimps and gangsters rub shoulders with wealthy fascist sympathisers in support of the war in Spain. As the threat of world war grows Susan is torn between loyalty to her family and a lover who will not let her go. But when the time comes to choose she finds a solution that surprises everyone. Susan's story continues in The Wayward Wife.

The world is at war, and women are working, often behind the scenes, in areas from nursing to espionage. And despite their many successes, these are the women the men don't see. Unimaginable danger creeps ever closer to Miss Lily and her loved ones . . . Amid the decadence and instability of Berlin in the 1920s, a band of women must unite to save all that is precious to them. With her dangerous past behind her, Australian heiress Sophie Higgs lives in quiet comfort as the Countess of Shillings, until Hannelore, Princess of Arneburg, charms the Prince of Wales. He orders Sophie, Nigel - and Miss Lily - to investigate the mysterious politician Hannelore believes is the only man who can save Europe from another devastating war. His name is Adolf Hitler. As unimaginable peril threatens to destroy countries and tear families apart, Sophie must face Goering's Brownshirt Nazi thugs, blackmail, and the many possible faces of love. And then the man she once adored and thought was lost reappears, and Sophie will be confronted by the girl intent on killing the mother who betrayed her family in the war: Miss Lily. The third book in the Miss Lily series, The Lily in the Snow is a story filled with secrets that also explores the strength of friendship and the changing face of women in this new Europe.

The Forest Gods' Fight is the fast-paced escapist sequel to The Forest Gods' Reign. It follows the fifteen-year-old reincarnations of the Greek gods of Olympus as they finally begin the war against Hades, the ruler of the Underworld, and his monster army. Running out of time before school starts and threatened with the possible loss of their beloved forest, the gods have never been closer, but only Athena, the goddess of Wisdom, knows a secret that could change everything. Continuing with the themes of differences between humans, gods, and monsters, The Forest Gods' Fight portrays mental and emotional struggles teens around the world will relate to.

The three sisters of Victory Walk in East London will face heartache and tears on the home front. Rose, Clover and Daisy are the pretty blond sisters of the Harrison family, living with their parents and two brothers, and working in East London and the outbreak of WWII. Rose the eldest is a nurse working in Homerton Hospital, she despairs of her younger siblings and their occasional less sensible attitudes to life. Clover is the handful of the family and whenever there's trouble she isn't far away. At the first chance she gets, she volunteers for the Auxiliary Service, but things go far from smoothly. Daisy is the baby of the family, but she doesn't want to be treated like a child anymore and is determined to grow up, whether her family like it or not. When she gets a chance to sign up to do her bit, she seizes her chance. As rationing, blackouts and bombs start to bite, life will change forever for the three sisters.

This book presents a fresh overview of the Vikings from both conceptual and material perspectives. The prevailing image of a Viking is frequently that of a fierce male, associated with military expansion and a distinctive material culture. In an engaging survey, Saebjorg Walaker Nordeide and Kevin J. Edwards analyse Viking religion, economic life and material culture in and beyond the Scandic homelands. Although there is a conventional Viking Age timeframe of ca. AD 800 to 1050 (the Scandinavians are usually associated with hit-and-run attacks beginning with the raid on the Abbey of Lindisfarne in 797), their military expeditions actually started earlier and were directed eastwards. Scandinavians moved beyond the Baltic coast to Constantinople. To the south and west, France, Iberia, and the islands of Great Britain and Ireland witnessed, variously, trade, invasion, and settlement. The essentially unpopulated islands of the North Atlantic Ocean were subjected to a Norse-led diaspora with the Scandinavian settlers perhaps over-reaching themselves in Newfoundland and ultimately abandoning their Greenlandic colonies. The Vikings have maintained a resonance in the popular imagination to the present day.

Take a journey across America with a poor Victorian flower girl in her epic journey to a better life, from the internationally bestselling author Lesley Pearse As voted by readers as their favourite Lesley Pearse novel ___________ One good deed takes her into another world . . . Sixteen-year-old Matilda is a poor Covent Garden flower girl until the day she saves the life of Tabitha, a minister's daughter. Welcomed into Tabitha's family, Matilda is offered the chance of a lifetime. She leaves behind London's slums and enters the darkest corners of New York. Traveling across the vast plains to the Wild West, she finds herself in San Francisco, a city in the grip of the gold rush. Streetwise and strong-willed, Matilda forges a new life for herself and Tabitha among pioneers like Captain James Russell - a man to whom she is deeply attracted. Yet a civil war will soon rip apart this new nation . . . Can Matilda and those she loves brave separation and carry on, never looking back? ___________ 'With characters it is impossible not to care about . . . this is storytelling at its very best' Daily Mail 'Heart-warming and evocative . . . a real delight to read' Sun 'Lose yourself in this epic saga' Bella 'Utterly riveting, brilliant' Closer 'An emotional and moving epic you won't forget in a hurry' Woman's Weekly

William Neal's fortunes change following his marriage to the daughter of his employer, a banker. The printing house he builds up brings him wealth. Sadly his young wife dies, but not before giving birth to a son, Robert. By a great stroke of luck, when playing a card game against a tricky Earl, William wins the Brackenholm Estate from which, as a mere ploughboy, he had escaped. His fortune would revive the waning economies of the estate. When William dies, Robert sells his shares in the printing works and becomes a Member of Parliament. Robert's elder son, also named William, inherits the estate, while his younger son Robert decides on a career as a surgeon, marries a servant and is disinherited. In the first volume of the trilogy, The Ploughboy, William Neal, ran away from his wretched life lifting stones from fields along the Scottish Borders. Reaching London with no assets, William became just another hungry urchin among many, until honesty and a happy coincidence gained him the role of assistant coachman on a privately owned carriage. The banker owner recognised William's potential and decided to offer the youngster a job as a teller.

The tangled relationships of Robert Flynn's award-winning novel Wanderer Springs surface again in Tie-Fast Country, this time centered around an elderly ranch woman, whose father raised her to be a cowboy, and her grandson, who doesn't know her and has been raised to hate her.

When Chance Carter, general manager of a TV station in Florida, gets a telephone call that his grandmother's health is failing and that he must do something about her, he knows only that he is heir to a million-dollar ranch and that his grandmother may have killed his grandfather and the man who was perhaps his father. His idea of a Texas ranch comes from television and he does not know what he will have to do to slide Rista Wyler off her land and into a nursing home. Nor does he know that the only cowboy Rista has left is Pug Caldwell, an old man who has worked for her since he was a teenager and may want the ranch for himself.

Reluctantly Chance leaves Florida behind, where he is in control of his own world, and also leaves Shana, the woman he loves but to whom he cannot quite commit. He finds himself more than a world away on the Texas ranch where Rista and Pug have thrown up barricades against intruders. He has no television, no phone, no contact with the outside world. And the food is monotonous and not very good.

As Chance watches for certifiable signs of senility in Rista and plans what he'll say to a judge, she puts him to work mending fences and doctoring cows with Pug. In chapters that alternate between the past and the present, Rista reveals the truth of the tangled story of her life. Gradually she introduces Chance to people and events that his mother had distorted in the telling. He finds outwhy Rista still searches the ranch for the undiscovered grave of her aunt, killed by Indians; he comes to know his grandfather, Odis, and even his great-grandfather, Claris, men of different temperaments and different loyalties. And he learns about Stoddard, the newspaperman Rista loved but could not marry. He even learns some bitter truths about his mother, Cassie, and her hatred for the ranch.

Chance comes to understand that Rista's commitment to the land is the strongest force in her life, a commitment taught her by her father. Over the years her tenacity in hanging on to the land cost her husband, lover, daughter, and grandson, but she never considered changing.

As Chance is learning to understand, if not accept completely, the world of his grandmother, Shana provides the sharp contrast of modern life. When Chance escapes to a telephone in town and calls Shana, she reports on the TV station, where sensationalism, not truth, matters.

With a strong and sure narrative voice, Flynn tells a dramatic story about people, the inability of some to change, the ability of others to adapt, and the lessons some learned. The novel is set against a ranching background that is accurate down to the last detail and word.

A family's struggle for love and hope in the aftermath of war In the aftermath of the Second World War, Faye Harvey struggles against the stigma of being a single mother. Faye is drawn to former POW Mark Fuller, but then the father of her son, a Scottish laird, offers marriage now he is a widower. Faye is torn. Meanwhile Tristan falls for the new housekeeper Susan Dowling, but their age difference and her distrust seem to make love impossible. And over at Ford Farm, Faye's cousin Lottie Harmon, begins to fear she may not want a new life with her GI husband after all... Fans of Rosie Clarke and Nadine Dorries will love the fifth compelling Harvey Family Saga.

Chocolate can also be bitter...It is a truth universally acknowledged that everyone dotes on Aunty Dot, as much as they do on her homemade sweets. The plump, smiling woman has provided a loving home for many a troubled child over the years, and Lizzie Pringle is no exception. Lizzie would do anything for her foster mother - even take on local sweet manufacturer and notorious bully, Cedric Finch. Until, that is, she falls for his son, Charlie. Meanwhile, Dena can't believe that Barry Holmes would hurt her beloved daughter: he's been like a favourite uncle to the little girl. But rumours are rife and her fears only grow... A thrilling saga of new love and old rivalries set around a sumptuous sweet shop in 1950s Manchester, perfect for fans of Nadine Dorries and Rosie Goodwin. Praise for Candy Kisses 'You can't put a price on Freda Lightfoot's stories from Manchester's 1950s Champion Street Market. They bubble with enough life and colour to brighten up the dreariest day and they have characters you can easily take to your heart' Northern Echo 'Brings to life the characters and the goings on in a close local community' 5* Reader review 'Superb reading with a mixture of pathos and victory' 5* Reader review 'This book will tug at your heart' 5* Reader review

Engrossing and memorable, The Sins of the Father is the second novel in international bestseller Jeffrey Archer's celebrated the Clifton Chronicles. It takes us to New York in 1939 where our hero Harry Clifton is in desperate need of help. Only days before Britain declares war on Germany, Harry joins the Merchant Navy, unable to face long-held family secrets and the fact he will never be able to marry his true love Emma Barrington. But when his ship is sunk mid-Atlantic, Harry takes the opportunity to assume the identity of one his deceased rescuers and begin a new life. Landing in America, he quickly discovers he has made a mistake and without any way to prove his true identity, Harry is now chained to a past that could be far worse than the one he had hoped to escape . . . Brimming with intrigue, the Clifton Chronicles continues its powerful journey with family loyalties stretched to their limits and fates decided. Continue the bestselling series with Best Kept Secret and Be Careful What You Wish For.