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November 1944. A German rocket incinerates a South London household-goods store, and five young lives are atomised in an instant. Jo and Valerie and Alec and Ben and Vernon are gone. But what if it were possible to resurrect them - to let them experience the extraordinary, unimaginable changes of the twentieth century; to live out all the personal triumphs and disasters, the second chances and redemptions denied them? What kind of future would there...
Author
Publisher
Bloomsbury
Pub. Date
2021
Description
Rosaleen is still a teenager, in the early Sixties, when she meets the famous sculptor Felix Lichtman. Felix is dangerous, bohemian, everything she dreamed of in the cold nights at her Catholic boarding school. And at first their life together is glitteringly romantic - drinking in Soho, journeying to Marseilles. But it's not long before Rosaleen finds herself fearfully, unexpectedly alone. Desperate, she seeks help from the only source she knows,...
Author
Publisher
Headline Review
Pub. Date
2021
Description
Jenny Tanner opens the box she has cherished for decades. Contained within are her most precious mementoes, amongst them a pebble, a carving and a newspaper cutting she can hardly bear to read. But Jenny knows the time is finally here. After the war, in a mountainside village in Italy, she left behind a piece of her heart. However painful, she must return to Cinque Alberi. And lay the past to rest. After a troubled upbringing, Candice Barnes dreams...
4) The lock-up
Author
Publisher
Faber
Pub. Date
2023
Description
1950s Dublin, in a lock-up garage in the city, the body of a young woman is discovered, an apparent suicide. But pathologist Dr Quirke and Detective Inspector Strafford soon suspect foul play. The victim's sister, a newspaper reporter from London, returns to Dublin to join the two men in their quest to uncover the truth. But, as they explore her links to a wealthy German family in County Wicklow, and to investigative work she may have been doing in...
Author
Publisher
Viking
Pub. Date
2022
Description
In Bournville, a placid suburb of Birmingham, sits a famous chocolate factory. For 11-year-old Mary and her family in 1945, it's the centre of the world. The reason their streets smell faintly of chocolate, the place where most of their friends and neighbours have worked for decades. Mary will go on to live through the Coronation and the World Cup final, royal weddings and royal funerals, Brexit and Covid-19. She'll have children and grandchildren...
Author
Publisher
Aria
Pub. Date
2022
Description
February 1941. The world is at war and Joyce Cooper is doing her bit for the effort. A proud member of the ARP, it is her job to assist the people of Notting Hill when the bombs begin to fall. But as the Blitz takes hold of London, Joyce is called upon to plot the devastation that follows in its wake. Each night she must stand before her map and mark the trail of turmoil inflicted upon the homes and businesses she knows so well. February 1974. Decades...
Author
Pub. Date
2022
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It's 1943, and the Second World War is raging. Ruby Mottram works for her local newspaper, the 'Bartonford Herald,' typing up adverts and obituaries, whilst dreaming of a more exciting life. Between her shifts as an ARP warden and caring for her ailing father, the chance for escape doesn't come often to Devon. Meanwhile, in America's deep south, Sam Archer is hatching a plan to raise enough money to get his mother and sister away from his abusive...
Author
Pub. Date
2023
Description
Autumn 1945. Off the east coast of England, a Japanese sub surfaces, unloads its mysterious cargo, then blows itself to pieces. Former spy Professor Tom Wilde is enjoying peacetime in Cambridge, settling back into teaching and family life. Until a call from senior MI5 boss Lord Templeman brings him out of retirement. A nearby village has been locked down by the military, its residents blighted by a deadly illness. No one is allowed in or out. There...
Author
Series
Guernsey Girls volume 2
Pub. Date
2024
Description
Spring, 1940. Annie's new husband Ricky leaves to fight, but soon Annie discovers battles brewing closer to home. Annie's sister Janey begins to unravel, and only Annie can pick up the pieces. With London's police officers on the front line, Annie is forced to step up at work and do her bit for the country. In Guernsey, Olivia finds herself without her husband and son just as Hitler invades the island. Now trapped and heartbroken she faces untold...
10) The moon gate
Author
Publisher
Headline Review
Pub. Date
2023
Description
On the eve of war, young English heiress Grace Grey travels from London to the wilderness of Tasmania. Coaxed out of her shell by the attentions of her Irish neighbour, Daniel - Grace finally learns to live. But when Australian forces are called to the frontline, and Daniel with them, he leaves behind a devastating secret which will forever bind them together. 1975. Willow Hawkins, and her husband, Ben, can't believe their luck when an anonymous benefactor...
12) The stolen baby
Author
Pub. Date
2021
Description
The story of one baby boy, forgotten by his family after an air raid in WW2 Plymouth, who then disappears. Based on a true story.
Author
Publisher
Headline Review
Pub. Date
2023
Description
Every summer Bea, Marissa and Emma meet at Seastone, Emma's family home on the remote Suffolk coast, to retreat from their daily lives and take comfort in their friendship. Over the years, their paths have not been easy. For Bea, the aftermath of a broken-hearted love affair influences the decisions she makes. For Marissa, the fear that her traumatic past will catch up with her haunts her still. And, for Emma, the sacrifices she has made for her family...
14) Great circle
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From the night she is rescued as a baby out of the flames of a sinking ship; to the day she joins a pair of daredevil pilots looping and diving over the rugged forests of her childhood, to the thrill of flying Spitfires during the war, the life of Marian Graves has always been marked by a lust for freedom and danger. In 1950, she embarks on her life's dream - to fly a Great Circle around the globe, pole to pole. But after a crash landing she finds...
Author
Publisher
Headline
Pub. Date
2022
Description
The Second World War is finally over when Lola Brown meets Harry Riggs at a dance. It is love at first sight but when Harry tells Lola that he is a policeman, her heart sinks. Lola's father is a petty criminal, and if Harry ever finds out and turns him in, it will destroy her family. Harry reluctantly accepts that Lola doesn't want to see him again, and eventually starts to find happiness without her. In the meantime, Lola encounters the eccentric...
Author
Pub. Date
2023
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Description
Eliza Jones and her husband Bryn had a whirlwind romance and married shortly after meeting, but he was soon sent off to fight. In the midst of a Blitz attack on Liverpool, which leaves Eliza with amnesia, she gives birth to their baby son, Alfie. Still struggling with the aftermath of the birth, Eliza is distraught when Alfie is kidnapped from the nursery. As the search for Alfie progresses and the community bands together around Eliza, she is left...
Author
Pub. Date
2023
Appears on list
Description
Germany, 1929. When Max, a Jewish architect, and Bettina, a beautiful and celebrated German avant-garde artist, meet at a party their attraction is instant. In love with each other and the art they create, their talent transports them to the dazzling lights of Berlin. But Germany is on the brink of terrible change, and their bright beginning is soon dimmed by the rising threat of Nazism. When Max is arrested and sent to the Dachau concentration camp,...
Author
Pub. Date
2022
Description
Norfolk, 1940. As war rages on, sisters Prue and Thea, along with the wider community of Great Plumstead, are doing all they can to help the war effort, from running the mobile canteen for the Women's Voluntary Service to organising clothing drives and collecting salvage. When, Anna, a young German girl who fled her country, seeks refuge at the local hall, Thea opens up her home, Rookery House, and invites Anna into their growing family. But while...
Author
Pub. Date
2023
Description
In the midst of WWII, an English musician, Norah Chambers, places her eight-year-old daughter Sally on a ship leaving Singapore, desperate to keep her safe from the Japanese army as they move down through the Pacific. Norah remains to care for her husband and elderly parents, knowing she may never see her child again. Sister Nesta James, a Welsh Australian nurse, has enlisted to tend to Allied troops. But as Singapore falls to the Japanese she joins...