Lily Larkin is the youngest of six and the least important member of her family. With their father dead and their mother a stranger to them, she must stay at home and keep house whilst her elder siblings go out to work. As she goes about her daily chores, her head is full of dreams. And she longs for the day she can have a life of her own. When a f...

When seventeen-year-old Belinda Phillips falls in love with a handsome Anglo-Indian officer, she knows that he is a man she can never hope to marry. When he is reported missing, believed killed in action, Belinda discovers that she is pregnant. Facing disgrace and ruin, she has no option other than to accept an arranged marriage with a middle-aged...

Eighteen-year-old Irene Angel lives with her parents in a tiny room above the shop where her crippled mother ekes out a living selling pickles and sauces, whilst her charming but feckless father Billy gambles away what little money they do manage to earn. And it is all Irene can do to keep the family together. Billy's addiction soon leads him into...

In the small Yorkshire town of Cottenly - dominated by the steel works and surrounded by beautiful countryside - Isaac Stanford lives with his wife Emily and their three lovely daughters, known locally as the Stanford lasses. Alice, the eldest, lives only for her work as a secretary and chapel on Sunday. Fair and loving Lizzie is content with her j...

It is 1925 and the war is long over. But much has been lost and life will never truly be the same again. Castle Deverill, cherished home to the Deverill family in the west of Ireland for hundreds of years, has burned to the ground. But young and flighty Celia Deverill is determined to restore the sad ruin to its former glory. Celia married well and...

After years spent with 'the dreaded Laura' Ben is finally free! A new divorcee he can't wait to get back in the game and sets about writing a list of all the things he has to do:  NOT sign up to the gym. (He's fit enough anyway).  Smoke cigars - they're much more sophisticated than cigarettes.  NOT contact Laura and that includes hiding in the b...

Glenda Jenkins has been beaten by her husband Harry one too many times - and this time he's put her in a hospital bed. Battered and bruised, Glenda slowly makes her recovery. But she fears what awaits her back at home.When Glenda meets kind hospital porter Frank, he offers her a lifeline she can't refuse. The pair decide to run away together, escap...

Since the untimely death of her husband, young mother Effie Grey has been forced to live on a narrowboat owned by her tyrannical father-in-law Jacob. In spite of her own despair, she is determined to protect her brother Tom and her baby son Georgie from Jacob's bullying ways - for she is all they have in the world. But when Jacob hires villainous S...

The dramatic conclusion to the bestselling Deverill Chronicles. It is 1939, and peace has flourished since the Great War ended. Martha Wallace came to Dublin from her home in America to find her birth mother. But instead she has lost her heart to the impossibly charming JP Deverill. Bridie Doyle, now mistress of Castle Deverill, is determined to ma...

Artist's daughter Penelope Keeling can look back on a full and varied life: a Bohemian childhood in London and Cornwall, an unhappy wartime marriage, and the one man she truly loved. She has brought up three children - and learned to accept them as they are. Yet she is far too energetic and independent to settle sweetly into pensioned-off old-age....

With her shy smile and kind nature, Alice Jacobs wins the hearts of the Arnold family. Decent and well respected Tom and Nancy Arnold have raised two very different sons: Frank and Joe. Frank is a devious, brutal man, determined to have Alice for himself. So Joe, who has himself fallen in love with her, leaves home when they become engaged and only...

Molly and Jack's relationship is being torn apart by Jack's nightmares. Trapped in a place where he is taunted by eyes in the gloom, it is becoming harder for Molly to pull him free. Realising that he is being driven close to the edge, Jack decides to hunt for answers. It soon becomes clear that he must trace people from his past. But Jack could ne...

No-one thought she had the courage... Those looking in from the outside think Lucy Lovejoy's life is like any other, but over the years, her children have watched while their father chipped away at Lucy's self-confidence. Now the children are following their own paths, and Lucy has never felt more alone. When tragedy strikes at the heart of the fam...

1950s Liverpool. In the tight-knit community of the Four Streets, two girls are growing up. One is motherless and hated by the cold woman determined to take her dead mother's place. The other is hiding a dreadful secret which she dare not tell to anyone. The people of Four Streets laugh, grieve and hope together. But what can they do when a betraya...

Ellen Trawton is running away from it all-literally. She's getting married to a man she doesn't love, her job is depressing and her mother is getting on her nerves. So she escapes to the one place she knows her mother won't follow her-her aunt's house in rural Ireland. Once there, she uncovers a dark family secret-and a future she never knew she mi...

Santa Montefiore's involving and dramatic novel The Butterfly Box opens in Vina del Mar, Chile, in the sweltering Summer of 1982. Frederica Campione adores her father. When he gives her a magical box from Peru she believes he will always be there for her. Yet, when her parents' marriage falls apart, she is forced to move to Cornwall with her mother...

When seventeen-year-old Mary O'Connor collapses one Sunday in church she is taken to live with Dr Roberts and his wife in a beautiful Yorkshire village for her health. Though initially employed as a maid, Mary soon becomes the daughter the couple were never able to have. With Britain at war, unable to remain idle, Mary finds employment in the local...

On a bitter winter's day, an unnamed girl lies dangerously ill in hospital. When two coarse, rough-speaking individuals come to claim her, she can remember nothing of the events that brought her to her present state, not even her name. According to the men, she is their young sister, Lucy. As her health improves and her memory gradually returns, sh...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Remember Me by Lesley Pearse, read by Kerry Howard. She made one mistake, and now she'll never see home again . . . Mary, a Cornish mariner's daughter, makes the biggest mistake of her short life when she steals a silk hat. Convicted and sentenced to be transported to Australia, she endures horrific conditi...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Secrets by Lesley Pearse, read by Sophie Ablett. Without her mother she is alone in the world . . . Twelve-year-old Adele is placed in a bleak, cruel children's home after a family tragedy drives her mother to madness. But when trust is betrayed Adele has no choice but to run away . . . Alone and friendless...

Two young sisters sent far, far from home ... When tragedy deprives little Dulcie Taylor and her sister May of their parents, they are sent first to an orphanage and then shipped off to begin a new life in Australia. But the 'better life' the sisters are promised in this new and exciting country turns out to be a lie. It seems everyone who ever sto...