Historical Family Saga

Jenny Roberts has a dream to escape her small hometown to become a writer. She develops a friendship with a young farmer, who is new to the area and has secretly fallen in love with her. After she realizes her friend means more to her than she thought, she must now choose between a career and romance. The only thing standing in her way is an unpleasant memory that has haunted her since childhood. She must learn to forgive before she can choose which dream to follow. Meanwhile, a legendary 10-foot grizzly is seen in the area, and its boldness has frightened the community.

War rages, but the women and children of Liverpool’s Dr Barnardo’s Home cannot give up hope.... Liverpool, 1943. Yorkshire is the place Lana has always called home, but it’s now filled with painful memories of her fiancé, Dickie, who was killed at sea. When she accepts the challenging position of headmistress at a school in Liverpool, she hopes a new beginning will help to mend her broken heart.

The East End of London has been devastated by the Blitz and the people are struggling to come to terms with their ravaged city. Rationing bites ever deeper, and and everything that makes life better is in short supply. For the district nurses, the challenges are tougher than ever. Gladys loves her work in the Civil Nursing Reserve, but just when she needs to rely on her sister at home to help out with the chores, she turns into a handful of trouble. Edith is learning to cope with her boyfriend's injuries after Dunkirk but will she have to choose between her love for him and her career?

As Hitler’s reign of terror begins to loom large over Germany, Gerhard and Elsa Schliemann - like other German Jews - must flee with their children in search of sanctuary. But life elsewhere in Europe offers few opportunities for medical professor Gerhard and his fellow scientists. Then they discover an unexpected haven in Turkey, where universities and hospitals welcome them as valuable assets. But despite embracing their adopted land, personal and political troubles persist.

First Place Winner, Fall 2023 Book Fest Award: Family Saga Every wedding seems like the beginning of a fairy tale, but sometimes the prince is actually a frog, or the big bad wolf. When Mary McGinn lost her husband, she was the mother of twelve children, and her oldest sons worked to provide for the family. She was always grateful for the sacrifices her children had made for the sake of their family, but now she needed to go back to work so that they could go on and live their lives. But finding work in depression-stricken Maine would not be easy for anyone in 1935, perhaps even more so for...

As the Japanese begin their assault on Singapore, Sarah Fuller is forced to leave her parents and fiancé, Philip, behind. The long journey to England is fraught with danger, and Sarah and her sister Jane don’t even know if their great-aunt is alive, let alone waiting for them. They arrive in Cliffehaven, on the south coast of England, and here Sarah must find work to support them both. When the Women's Timber Corps takes over the local estate, Sarah enlists as a lumberjill.

The slaughter of 183 Texas heroes at an old mission fort in San Antonio in the spring of 1836 sparked a series of events that changed Texas and Texans forever. Upon his victory at the Alamo, General Santa Anna ordered his army to drive all Anglos from the northern Mexican territory and torch their farms and ranches. Almost thirty thousand people, mostly women, children and the elderly fled their homes for safety beyond Texas' border just hours ahead of an army bent on their annihilation. But there were some left behind. A thirteen-year-old boy and his seven-year-old sister suddenly find ...

'Fans of Maeve Binchy and Cathy Kelly will love this.' A story of the aftermath, of picking up the pieces, of finding yourself again and discovering that life isn’t always easy . . . it’s not meant to be, but it can be worth it. Ann Maguire believes that discovering the truth of her past will set her free, but sometimes having all the answers isn’t enough . . . Forced to leave Dublin after her marriage crumbles, Ann returns to her childhood home of Knockmore, to find herself even more isolated than before. Catapulted back to grieving for her parents and the life she once knew, ...

Cliffehaven, 1946. The war is over and those who have spent years fighting behind enemy lines are finally coming home. Peggy Reilly is over the moon that her husband Jim is safely back from Burma. But after the horrors he has endured, adjusting to life at Beach View will not be easy. Can he and Peggy find a way through? Meanwhile evacuee Ruby Clark has much to contend with when her estranged mother turns up, having completed a long prison sentence. There is huge heartache still to come for Ruby, and she will need her Beach View family more than ever.

1916. At the onset of war, Nurse Pru le Cuirot left her home in Jersey to care for injured soldiers at Ashbury Manor, Dorset. She wanted to do her bit but she never expected to meet Canadian pilot, Jack Garland, so unlike any man she has ever met. When Jack is sent on a dangerous mission and vanishes, Pru is forced to make an agonising decision…one that will haunt them both forever.

On a cold night in 1877, Laurel Whitman’s father flies into a rage and throws her into the street. His behavior isn’t unusual; he has ridiculed her for years, and Laurel doesn’t understand why. All she knows is that his vitriol has something to do with her grandmother, a woman shrouded in mystery. Laurel goes on a harrowing journey from her home in Philadelphia to Maryland only to discover that her grandmother is on death’s door. She is welcomed with open arms by her extended family but receives a chilly reception from her grandmother who seems suspicious of Laurel’s arrival. Over...

Orphaned at a young age in the slums of Whitechapel, Lucy makes a promise to a childhood sweetheart before being ripped away from the only place she’s ever known. Enduring years of gruelling work as a domestic at a grand estate in the countryside, she’s suddenly called back to London under mysterious circumstances. As she navigates her new role in upper crust society, will she ever find her long lost love and fulfill her promise?

Sara Dane is an 18th-century young Englishwoman, unjustly sentenced and transported to the penal colony of Australia. Follow Sara's struggle to raise herself from the status of a convict to a position of wealth and power. Sara faces many challenges, from the savage voyage aboard a convict ship to the corruption and prejudice rife in New South Wales. Life in the colony is harsh, and Sara has to contend with natural disasters and convict outbreaks, as well as the snobbery of the high society she wishes to enter.

Queenie is only 14 and has been deserted by her mother. Set in Liverpool and Wales at the outbreak of World War II, this story explores themes of female friendship and betrayal from the perspective of a group of women of widely different ages.

Thomasin Marwood is one of Queen Catherine's ladies-in-waiting at the court of Henry VIII, and she does not trust Lady Anne Boleyn. But when an accident forces Thomasin and her family to take refuge at the Boleyn family home at Hever Castle, Thomasin is entrusted with an unexpected mission by Anne's mother.

The year is 1979. The Iranian Revolution is just around the corner, as is a once-in-a-lifetime solar eclipse. Meanwhile, in the northeastern city of Naishapur, a retired judge and his wife, Bibi, run an ancient orchard, growing apples, plums, peaches, and sour cherries, and looking after several generations of family members. The days here are marked by long, elaborate lunches on the terrace and arguments about government corruption and the rise of religious fundamentalism, peppered with tales of ancient Persia that foreshadow the seismic political changes to come.

A drunken mother makes childhood ugly. Jane runs away at sixteen, determined to leave her fraught upbringing in the rearview. Vowing never to return, she hitchhikes to California, right on time for the Summer of Love. Seventeen years later, she looks good on paper: married, grad school, sober, but her carefully constructed life is crumbling. When Mama dies, Jane returns for the funeral, leaving her husband in the dark about her history. Seeing her childhood home and significant people from her youth catapults Jane back to the events that made her the woman she is. She faces down her past ...

The war in Europe is over, but for Peggy Reilly and the residents of Beach View Boarding House the effects of the conflict are still far-reaching. Cockney evacuee Ivy and her sweetheart, Andy, are saving to get married and fulfil their dream of returning to the East End. But when tragedy strikes, Ivy is faced with a life-changing dilemma that only she can resolve. Rita also faces an impossible choice when her sweetheart, Peter, proposes and asks her to live with him in Australia - just as her widowed father returns from the fighting in Europe.

First published in 1944, The Building of Jalna is one of sixteen books in the Jalna series written by Canada's Mazo de la Roche. In The Building of Jalna, Adeline, an impulsive bride with an Irish temper, and her husband, Captain Whiteoak, select Lake Ontario as the site of their new home. De la Roche chronicles their trials and tribulations during the building of the house, the swimming and skating parties, and the jealousies and humourous events that arise.

Are generations of Snee-Kinsman women actually cursed, or is it just bad luck? A paranormal family saga beginning in 1860 following one family’s journey of tragedy, resiliency and triumph. Their stories are told in three short read books. Book 1 – Curse of the Emerald Ring – 1860 - 1940 *Two spiteful and competitive witches place a curse on each other’s female children. * To punish his wayward daughter, an angry father casts the family curse in stone – an emerald stone. * The ring with the emerald stone is to be worn by the women of the Snee-Kinsman family and passed down from ...