Phoebe Giamatti lives with her boisterous Italian family in the heart of London's East End. Phoebe's father was killed in gang warfare and she and her family share a deep hatred for the Paxman brothers - whose lawless ways strike terror into the whole community. Despite her English mother's feckless ways, Phoebe is fiercely protective of Annie. Then just as the family are about to go to Italy for the winter, Phoebe discovers Annie is in trouble -...

The Clifton Chronicles is Jeffrey Archer?s most ambitious work in four decades as an international bestselling author. The epic tale of Harry Clifton?s life begins in 1919, in the backstreets of Bristol. His father was a war hero, but it will be twenty-one tumultuous years before Harry discovers the truth about how his father really died and if, in fact, he even was his father. The first in the series, Only Time Will Tell takes a cast of memorable...

Celia Frost has always thought herself a cut above the other residents of Lark Rise in Battersea. When her beloved son, Thomas, starts seeing Amy Miller, a girl from the bottom of the Rise, Celia disapproves, thinking her common. When Celia's husband leaves her and Thomas announces he is to marry Amy, she is more determined than ever to split them up. Celia needs an ally, so she writes to her elder son, Jeremy, asking him to come home. Jeremy?s arrival...

Margriet grew up as a lonely child in the old town of hull. Her adored father travelled often to the Netherlands as a tulip importer, leaving her with an unaffectionate mother and only her imagination to keep her company. When tragedy strikes and her father's ship goes down in a storm, devastation ravages her tiny family. Years later, Margriet is beginning to blossom into a fine young lady. Keen to escape her mother, Margriet becomes intrigued by...

Narrated by Lilly Bere, 'On Canaan's Side' opens as she mourns the loss of her grandson, Bill. The story then goes back to the moment she was forced to flee Sligo, at the end of the First World War, and follows her life through into the new world of America, a world filled with hope and danger.

Set between the 1930s and the present, Maggie O'Farrell's novel is the story of Esme, a woman edited out of her family's history, and of the secrets that come to light when, 60 years later, she is released from care, and a young woman, Iris, discovers the great aunt she never knew she had.

19-year-old April Wilton has just enlisted in the WRENs in Portsmouth, where she works servicing engines on ships. She finds herself immersed in dockyard life and surrounded by soldiers - from England and America. The atmosphere is one of spontaneity and impulsiveness, brought on by the unpredictability of war. So when April meets Daniel, a young American soldier, whose mother is Sioux and father is of African descent, she doesn't hesitate when she...

Lottie Lane is a chambermaid at one of London's busiest inns. Condemned to a life of drudgery and at the mercy of a vicious landlady, Lottie is too worn out to even dream of a better life. Until one night an injured soldier is brought to The Swan. Lottie nurses him back from the dead and suddenly everything changes. She finds herself following the drum of the soldiers, from the docks of Chatham to the despair of a far flung battlefield. When tragedy...

It is 1919. Liverpool has been devastated by World War I. But at last the war is over. Emily Parkinson goes back into service and enjoys the return to normality. But her sister Phoebe-Anne has ideas beyond her station. Working as a lady's maid, Phoebe-Ann hopes that one day she will be more than just a friend to her mistress's shell-shocked brother James Mercer. When Emily is brutally attacked, the sisters' lives come close to ruin. Phoebe-Ann is...

Rachel has always loved being at the centre of her large family. She has fiercely devoted herself to her three sons all their lives, and continues to do so even now they are all grown up. They are, of course, devoted to her also. But when Luke, her youngest, gets married, Rachel finds that control is slipping away.