Juliet Stevenson
Author
Pub. Date
2022
Appears on list
Description
Since the sudden death of her husband, Naomi has steadily rebuilt the life they shared in the village of Tilsham by the sea. Her eldest daughter, Martha, is sensible and determined - just like her father was - and very much in control of where her life is going. If she could just get pregnant with her husband, life would be perfect. Willow, the youngest, was always more sunny and easy-going, yet drifted through life, much to her father's frustration....
Author
Pub. Date
2021
Description
Flappy Scott-Booth is the self-appointed queen bee of Badley Compton, a picturesque Devon village. While her husband Kenneth spends his days on the golf course, she is busy overseeing her beautiful house and gardens, and organising unforgettable events, surrounded by friends who hang on to her every word. Her life is a reflection of herself - impossibly perfect. Until the day that Hedda Harvey-Smith and her husband Charles move into the village. Into...
3) Here and now
Author
Pub. Date
2020
Description
Marigold has spent her life taking care of those around her, juggling family life with the running of the local shop, and being an all-round leader in her quiet yet welcoming community. When she finds herself forgetting things, everyone quickly puts it down to her age. But something about Marigold isn't quite right, and it's becoming harder for people to ignore. As Marigold's condition worsens, for the first time in their lives her family must find...
Author
Pub. Date
2020
Description
It is 1950. In a devastating moment of clarity, Margery Benson abandons her dead-end job and advertises for an assistant to accompany her on an expedition. She is going to travel to the other side of the world to search for a beetle that may or may not exist. Enid Pretty, in her unlikely pink travel suit, is not the companion Margery had in mind. And yet together they will be drawn into an adventure that will exceed every expectation. They will risk...
Author
Description
Themis grows up during the brutal German occupation of Greece. In the subsequent Civil War, the country is polarised between Right and Left and Themis' family is bitterly divided. During the violent five-year struggle for control of the country, she fights for Communists and is seduced by the leader of her rebel band. Captured and sent to the notoriously cruel islands of exile, Makronisos and Trikeri, Themis gives birth to a son, Angelos.
6) Trespass
Author
Description
Set among the hills and gorges of the Cevennes, the dark and beautiful heartland of southern France, 'Trespass' is a novel about disputed territory, sibling love and devastating revenge.
Author
Series
Appears on these lists
Classics Collection
If you like Joanna Trollope
If you like Kate Atkinson, you might like...
The Big Jubilee Read
If you like Joanna Trollope
If you like Kate Atkinson, you might like...
The Big Jubilee Read
Description
In a Kensington hostel towards the end of World War 2, a group of well-bred, but impecunious young women, are leading lives of ritual femininity. All is well until their interlude of innocence is destroyed by the horror of the times.
Author
Publisher
Clipper Audiobooks
Pub. Date
2016
Description
When a wanted war criminal, masquerading as a healer, settles in a small west coast Irish village, the community are in thrall. One woman, Fidelma McBride, falls under his spell and in this searing novel, Edna O'Brien charts the consequence of that fatal attraction. This is a story about love, the artifice of evil and the terrible necessity of accountability in our shattered, damaged world.
10) Jane eyre
Author
Publisher
Bolinda/Audible audio
Pub. Date
2014
Description
Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead, subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. She takes up the post of governess at Thornfield, falls in love with Mr. Rochester, and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage in a story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman's passionate search for a wider and richer life than Victorian society traditionally...
Author
Publisher
Vintage Digital
Pub. Date
2018
Description
This voyage is special. It will change everything ? One September evening in 1785, the merchant Jonah Hancock hears urgent knocking on his front door. One of his captains is waiting eagerly on the step. He has sold Jonah?s ship for what appears to be a mermaid. As gossip spreads through the docks, coffee shops, parlours and brothels, everyone wants to see Mr Hancock?s marvel. Its arrival spins him out of his ordinary existence and through the doors...
Author
Publisher
Clipper Audiobooks
Pub. Date
2022
Description
Mrs Harris is a salt-of-the-earth London charlady who cheerfully cleans the houses of the rich. One day, when tidying Lady Dant's wardrobe, she comes across the most beautiful thing she has ever seen in her life - a Dior dress. In all the years of her drab and humble existence, she's never seen anything as magical as the dress before her and she's never wanted anything as much before. Determined to make her dream come true, Mrs Harris scrimps, saves...
13) Mrs Harris, MP
Author
Series
Pub. Date
2023
Description
The classic satirical novel 'Mrs Harris is one of the great creations of fiction - so real that you feel you know her, yet truly magical as well. I can never have enough of her' Justine Picardie 'It is almost impossible not to succumb to Gallico's spell' Times Literary Supplement Mrs Harris is a salt-of-the-earth charlady, content with her lot, cleaning the homes of the rich. However, her knack of setting things straight often has the tendency to...
14) Miss Austen
Author
Pub. Date
2020.
Description
The Sunday Times bestseller, and set to be a major TV drama. A wonderfully original, emotionally complex novel that delves into why Cassandra burned a treasure trove of letters written by her sister, Jane Austen - an act of destruction that has troubled academics for centuries. 1840: twenty three years after the death of her famous sister Jane, Cassandra Austen returns to the village of Kintbury, and the home of her family's friends, the Fowles. She...
15) Maggie's tree
Author
Description
As their friend Helena is the toast of Broadway, comedienne Cissie O'Brien takes beautiful actress Maggie Salt to see her. But Maggie is troubled, & on arrival disappears into the winter night. As the search for their friend continues, cracks occur in the lifelong relationships of Cissie, Helena & her husband Mark.
Author
Publisher
Bolinda/Audible audio
Pub. Date
2017
Description
Inspired by a grisly discovery in the 19th century, The King's General was the first of du Maurier's novels to be written at Menabilly, the model for Manderley in Rebecca. Set in the 17th century, it tells the story of a country and a family riven by civil war, and features one of fiction's most original heroines. Honor Harris is only 18 when she first meets Richard Grenvile - proud, reckless and utterly captivating. But following a riding accident,...
Author
Publisher
Chivers Audio
Pub. Date
2010
Description
Stella, unlike the other residents of Middleton Hall, is smart and elegant. She reveals nothing of her past and only Jenny seems aware that her heart harbours a dark, painful secret. And only she can prevent Stella from carrying it to the grave.
18) The nine
Author
Publisher
Bolinda Audio
Pub. Date
2021
Description
The nine were ordinary women, some still in their teens, who joined the French and Dutch Resistance in the face of Nazi horror and oppression. Caught out in heroic acts against the brutal regime, they were each tortured and sent East to a forced labour camp, where they formed a powerful friendship, determined to survive, together. This harrowing interlude was only the beginning. In 1945, as the war turned against Germany, they were forced on a Death...
Author
Appears on list
Description
This engaging story of two attractive and mutually devoted sisters was first published in 1811. Romantic Marianne with her unrestrained enthusiasms, which lead to disillusionment and despair, makes a perfect foil to the unselfish Elinor, who brings a quiet self-control to her own heartbreak. The sentimental education of the two heroines is conducted with a fine regard for all the varying shades of romantic attraction, and in the end it is Marianne...
20) The angel tree
Author
Appears on list
Description
Thirty years have passed since Greta left Marchmont Hall, a grand and beautiful house nestled in the hills of rural Monmouthshire. But when she returns to the Hall for Christmas, at the invitation of her old friend David Marchmont, she has no recollection of her past association with it - the result of a tragic accident that has blanked out more than two decades of her life. Then, during a walk through the wintry landscape, she stumbles across a grave...