Maureen Lee

Liverpool, 1950. They say you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family. Yet when Violet Duffy is asked to give a home to the orphaned children of a distant relative, it is precisely the choice she must face. Can she turn her spinster life upside down and take these lost souls into her little house on Amber Street?

It's 1944 and Flora Knox is enjoying a spring morning in the Swiss mountains, waiting for a train. Having been educated in Switzerland, Flora has been unable to return home to the UK since the outbreak of war, much to her delight. As Flora watches, a cattle train draws closer to the station, pulling a fleet of slatted trucks behind. But the trucks don't contain animals. From within come the sounds of humans, groaning, pleading, on a desperate journey...

The newcomers flocked to Victoria Square, a parcel of land that had once belonged to Victoria Macara's family. Rachel, having escaped a terrible tragedy, decides to hold a barbecue and invites the whole square. The event becomes a time for truth-telling and the uncovering of old secrets.

To make up for the love and passion that is missing from her life, Jessica spends the occasional afternoon at the local cinema, lost in romantic films. But when an unexpected glass of champagne is offered to her in a Liverpool hotel, the consequences turn out to be shattering. When Bertie discovers his wife's deceit, he is ruthless in his revenge. He sells their house and disappears with her beloved children, leaving Jessica devastated and alone....

Liverpool, 1914. Martha Rossi lives in a tenement with her husband and their five children. Despite working all the hours she can, the family don't have much to get by on. When Martha's 14-year-old son, Joe, proudly enlists to fight for his country just to earn his mother an extra shilling, Martha is horrified.

Alice Lacey couldn't be more different from her sister-in-law, Cora. Both of them give birth to sons on the same night. Cora swaps her baby for Alice's beautiful son. The story of these family relationships is set in Liverpool over the last 60 years.

Daisy is finishing school and getting married before the new term starts; Norah is returning to take A levels. So, the next few weeks are going to be a very special time. But they reckoned without the strange, charismatic young man, Jack Hannay, who has come to live in the local boatyard. The girls fall under the dark spell of Jack Hannay, along with the beautiful Amanda Pilgrim who wants to be an actress when she grows up. Sadly, the holiday comes...

When Pearl was just five, her mother Amy was sent to prison for murdering Pearl's father. Now, in 1971, Amy is released from prison. Her freedom changes the lives of others, not least that of Pearl, now 25.

This, the second novel in Maureen Lee's sequence about working class family life during World War II, takes the story through 1940 and the Blitz. The inhabitants of Pearl Street, Liverpool face hardship and heartbreak with humour and fortitude.

From the happy atmosphere of her uncle and aunt's house to the lonely seclusion of life with her reclusive mother, Annie Harrison eventually goes to live at The Grand Hotel with her rich school friend, Sylvia. But just as she seems to be settling down to a life of marriage and motherhood, fate deals her an unexpected blow.