The Orphanage Girls is a gritty and moving historical saga about an orphanage in London's East End, from the bestselling author of The Jam Factory Girls, Mary Wood. Children deserve a family to call their own. Ruth dares to dream of another life - far away from the horrors within the walls of Bethnal Green's infamous orphanage. Luckily she has her friends, Amy and Ellen - but she can't keep them safe, and the suffering is only getting worse. Surely there must be a way out of here? But when Ruth breaks free from the shackles of confinement and sets out into East London, hoping to make a new life for herself, she finds that, for a girl with nowhere to turn, life can be just as tough on the outside. Bett keeps order in this unruly part of the East End - and takes Ruth under her wing alongside orphanage escapee Robbie. But it is Rebekah, a kindly woman, who offers Ruth and Robbie a home - something neither have ever known. Yet even these two stalwart women cannot protect them when the police learn of an orphan on the run. It is then that Ruth must do everything in her power to hide. Her life - and those of the friends she left behind at the orphanage - depend on it. Continue the emotional series with The Orphanage Girls Reunited.

July 1947. Britain is still gripped by rationing, even as the excitement of Princess Elizabeth's engagement sweeps the nation. In the Woolworths' canteen, Freda is still dreaming of meeting her own Prince Charming. So far she's been unlucky in love. When she has an accident on her motorbike, knocking a cyclist off his bicycle, it seems bad luck is still following her around. Anthony is not only a fellow Woolworths employee but was an Olympic hopeful. Will his injured leg heal in time for him to compete? Can he ever forgive Freda? Sarah's idyllic family life is under threat with worries about her husband, Alan. Does he still love her? The friends must rally round to face some of the toughest challenges of their lives together. And although they experience loss, hardship and shocks along the way, love is on the horizon for the Woolworths girls . . . Wedding Bells for Woolworths is the fifth instalment in Elaine Everest's much-loved Woolworths series.

* Longlisted for the HWA Debut Crown Longlist 2022 * 'A stunning achievement' TLS 'Unforgettable' Nguyen Phan Que Mai, author of The Mountains Sing As the Korean independence movement gathers pace, two children meet on the streets of Seoul. Fate will bind them through decades of love and war. They just don't know it yet. It is 1917, and Korea is under Japanese occupation. With the threat of famine looming, ten-year-old Jade is sold by her desperate family to Miss Silver's courtesan school in the bustling city of Pyongyang. As the Japanese army tears through the country, she is forced to flee to the southern city of Seoul. Soon, her path crosses with that of an orphan named JungHo, a chance encounter that will lead to a life-changing friendship. But when JungHo is pulled into the revolutionary fight for independence, Jade must decide between following her own ambitions and risking everything for the one she loves. Sweeping through five decades of Korean history, Juhea Kim's sparkling debut is an intricately woven tale of love stretched to breaking point, and two people who refuse to let go.

Ida's shadow rose erect, and her black-eyed gaze, calm as the eye of the hurricane, rested on Geneva's face. 'Who's the father? Geneva gripped the sheets more tightly, her eyes blurring, her mind struggling to imagine the consequences of answering her question. Victor was in the war. The children were in Massachusetts. Her mind could focus no better than her eyes. Her whole body seized up as another wave of pain engulfed her. 'He can be made to take responsibility, you know. Tell me, said Ida. No. Geneva turned her face aside. She would write a letter to Massachusetts. Please forward. Victor would come home. Then they would face Ida and John Scarborough and the rest of the world, together. 'Well, are you going to tell me? 'N-no. I-I can take care of it. Victor could be here before John Scarborough could make her do anything. Please God 'Um-hum. Was it, by chance, my brother? Dear God. 'Tell me girl, or I give you my word, I won't help you. Geneva felt Victor had delivered her into the hands of a monster. 'Suzanne Morris excels in providing new dimensions to conventional narrative. -Dallas Morning News 'Suzanne Morris writes with all the bark off. dilemmas. She lets the presence of the past lean upon her unsuspecting characters. -Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch

Secrets of the Singer Girls is Kate Thompson's heartwarming and moving novel about the brave, hardworking women who kept the homefires burning in the East End of London during World War Two. 1942. Sixteen-year-old Poppy Percival turns up at the gates of Trout's clothing factory in Bethnal Green with no idea what her new life might have in store. There to start work as a seamstress and struggling to get to grips with the noise, dirt and devastation of East London, Poppy can't help but miss the quiet countryside of home. But Poppy harbours a dark secret - one that wrenched her away from all she knew and from which she is still suffering . . . And Poppy's not the only one with a secret. Each of her new friends at the factory is hiding something painful. Vera Shadwell, the forelady, has had a hard life with scars both visible and concealed; her sister Daisy has romantic notions that could get her in trouble; and Sal Fowler, a hardworking mother who worries about her two evacuated boys for good reason. Bound by ties of friendship, loyalty and family, the devastating events of the war will throw each of their lives into turmoil but also bring these women closer to each other than they could ever have imagined.

Zack Webb had been abandoned by his mother when he was no more than a week old. She placed him among some quilts that were in Clayton Leon and Grandma Sally Rickett''s wagon. Not knowing what to do with the child, they took him home gave him a name and rasied him as their own. When he was fifteen years old, he joined General Lee''s confederate army. But now he was going back home and everything would be good again. Or would it? Some men marched home from the war to find their homes or farms burned out and their family gone. Some of the wives, being left alone, packed what they could carry and went back home to their fathers house. So, the men became angry and become lawless. Many of them caught on with a wagon train and went west to become gun-slingers and outlaws. But Zack found his home to be just like he had left it and at the tender age of nineteen, he hoped to make a good life and forget about the war. But that would not be an easy task. Trouble came at him from every direction.

A 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist * One of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2012 * One of TIME's Top 10 Fiction Books of 2012 * One of The Wall Street Journal's Best 10 Fiction Books of 2012 * A New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book of 2012 "[NW] is that rare thing, a book that is radical and passionate and real." -Anne Enright, The New York Times Book Review "A triumph . . . As Smith threads together her characters' inner and outer worlds, every sentence sings." -The Guardian "A powerful portrait of class and identity in multicultural London." -Entertainment Weekly Set in northwest London, Zadie Smith's brilliant tragicomic novel follows four locals-Leah, Natalie, Felix, and Nathan-as they try to make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the council estate of their childhood. In private houses and public parks, at work and at play, these Londoners inhabit a complicated place, as beautiful as it is brutal, where the thoroughfares hide the back alleys and taking the high road can sometimes lead you to a dead end. Depicting the modern urban zone-familiar to city-dwellers everywhere-NW is a quietly devastating novel of encounters, mercurial and vital, like the city itself.

Hampshire, 1900. With the sudden death of her father, the life of fifteen-year-old Harriet Benson changes forever. Forced from her home to escape the advances of her leering stepbrother Norris, Harriet is sent into service to provide for the family. Arriving at the grand Dalton House, she meets the owners' crippled son Joseph, with whom friendship soon blossoms. When circumstances force Joseph to leave the family home, Harriet is happy to accompany him and break free from the controlling influence of her stepmother. But Harriet is unprepared for the event which will alter her life even further: her unexpected inheritance of Greyladies, a supposedly haunted house in the country. Could this be the safe haven she so desperately needs, and does the ghost of its previous owner really roam the halls? While Harriet and Joseph grow ever closer, the plots and actions of both their families threaten to destroy their happiness. Will their love, and the legacy of Greyladies, be able to survive?