1920s, Manchester. Living in the deprived Ancoats area of Manchester Polly Pride feels more fortunate than most until her husband Matthew loses his job and her life is thrown into turmoil. With no money coming in Polly must act to keep her family from starvation. In a desperate gamble she sells all the family goods and buys a handcart, from which she sells second-hand rugs and carpets. But struggling to deal with poverty and her husband's hurt pride...

She glanced at her phone again. There were appeals from the girls, from her colleagues, a text from Steve reading with uncharacteristic imperiousness, 'Call me'. She couldn't. She couldn't call anyone. She leaned forward, gripping the edge of the bench, and stared at the ground. God, she thought, am I losing my mind? Is this what happens when you lose your job? The day Stacey Grant loses her job feels like the last day of her life. Or at least, the...

Kate Hannigan, Catherine Cookson's first published novel, has been in print since it first apeared in 1950. Now, 50 years later, comes its sequel Kate Hannigan's Girl. As Kate did, Annie must find the strength and maturity to overcome troubles.

Kate Madison's stylish second-hand clothing shop has been a big success in New York, supporting her and her 4 kids since her husband's untimely death. Now her children have grown up and are ready to forge lives of their own. They all choose to play against the odds - much to their mother's dismay.

Edie Kelsey and Lil Horton have been friends for over twenty years, living tough lives as the wives of fishermen in Grimsby. So it came as no surprise that their children were close and that Edie's son, Frank, and Lil's daughter, Irene, fell in love and married at a young age. But the declaration of war in 1939 changes everything. Frank goes off to fight and Irene and baby Tommy, along with Edie's youngest son, are sent to the countryside for safety....

Through 20 years of friendship Aisling & Elizabeth's paths will cross & re-cross. As they face their loves, their marriages & their disappointments, they realise that not all problems will be solved, nor all wishes granted by lighting a penny candle.

Her father is dead and her mother doesn't want her... When Babby's dad is killed in a senseless bar room brawl it changes their family forever. She is sent away only to return home a few years later, unmarried and pregnant. Her mother is incandescent with rage and with Callum - Babby's sweetheart - nowhere to be found, persuades her daughter to go to a Mother and Baby Home. But does Babby have no option but to give her baby up... For Fans of Call...

In impoverished Birmingham in the 1930s, Emma Brown's life is turned upside down when her mother, Cynthia, has another baby. Cynthia doesn't seem able to cope, and soon it seems that the only thing to do is for her to go and stay with her tyrannical older sister across the city. Life gets even tougher for Emma with her mother away, and she decides it's time to bring her mother home. But the woman she discovers is very different to the mother she remembers....

1850: Beatrix Fawcett is just eighteen when her father tells her she is to marry a stranger. Hesitant, but with little choice, she agrees to the match - with hope for a good husband in Charles, and the surprising delight of a lovely Yorkshire house in which they are to live. As Beatrix sets to making the house a home, she falls in love with it and the countryside nearby. But she does not fall in love with her husband. It's clear Charles has chosen...

Almost a decade after being rescued from a shipwreck by a local Cornish family, sixteen-year-old Lottie is settled in St Ives with her adoptive family. But after a trip to America to meet her birth mother ends badly, Lottie fears her new life might be falling apart. Arriving back in Cornwall, Lottie struggles to adjust to life with her temperamental mother around, and her very arrival shakes up their quiet community. Lottie, too, faces a more difficult...