When Stella Simmons comes to the Devonshire village of Burracombe to start her teaching career, she is alone in the world. Orphaned as a child and brought up in a children's home, she was separated from her sister, Muriel, and has never been able to trace her. Stella is soon caught up in the life of the village, especially in the plans for celebrating the Festival of Britain. With the help of artist Luke Ferris, she tries to find Muriel. But Luke has his own troubles - notably the relationship he once had with Val Tozer, daughter of a local farmer.

Three very different girls sign up as trainee nurses at a big London teaching hospital in 1934. Dora leaves her overcrowded, squalid working-class home for a better life. But has she got what it takes to keep up with other, better-educated girls? And will her hated stepfather ever let her go? Helen is born for the job; her brother is a doctor, her all-powerful mother a hospital trustee. But will Helen’s secret misery be her downfall? An aristocratic rebel, Millie’s carefree attitude will find her up in front of Matron again and again. Will she ever care enough to make a nurse? Or will she go back to the glamorous life she was born to?

At the end of a long and useful life, Penelope Keeling's prized possession is The Shell Seekers, painted by her father, and symbolizing her unconventional life, from bohemian childhood to wartime romance. When her grown children learn their grandfather's work is now worth a fortune, each has an idea as to what Penelope should do. But as she recalls the passions, tragedies, and secrets of her life, she knows there is only one answer...and it lies in her heart.

Set against the backdrop of an elegant Cornwall mansion before World War II and a vast continent-spanning canvas during the turbulent war years, this captivating story tells of an extraordinary young woman's coming of age, coming to grips with love and sadness, and in every sense of the term, coming home.... In 1935, Judith Dunbar is left behind at a British boarding school when her mother and baby sister go off to join her father in Singapore.

As the Great War continues to take its toll, headstrong 21-year-old Emily Bryce is determined to contribute to the war effort. She is convinced by a cheeky and handsome Australian pilot that she can do more, and it is not long before she falls in love with him and accepts his proposal of marriage. When he is sent back to the front, Emily volunteers as a “land girl,” tending to the neglected grounds of a large Devonshire estate. It’s here that Emily discovers the long-forgotten journals of a medicine woman who devoted her life to her herbal garden.

Alice Lake has arrived in London from Liverpool to start her training as a District Nurse, but her journey has been far from easy. Her parents think that she should settle down and get married, but she has already had her heart broken once and isn’t about to make the same mistake again. Alice and her best friend, Edith, are based in the East End, but before they’ve even got their smart new uniforms on, war breaks out, and Hitler’s bombs are raining down on London.

London, 1940. Bombs fall and Josie Banks’ world crumbles around her. Her overbearing husband, Stan, is unreachable, called to service. Her home, a ruin of rubble and ash. Josie’s beloved tearoom boss has been killed, and Josie herself is injured, with nothing left and nowhere to go. Evacuated to the English countryside, Josie ends up at the estate of the aristocratic Miss Harcourt, a reluctant host to the survivors of the Blitz. Now a threat looms larger than anyone imagined. And a dangerous secret is about to upend Josie’s life again.

It’s the summer of 1919, and Ellen O’Brien has her whole life ahead of her. Young, in love and leaving home for her first job, the future seems full of shining possibility. But war is brewing, and before long, Ellen and everyone around her are swept up by it. As Ireland is torn apart by the turmoil, Ellen finds herself facing the ultimate test of love and loyalty. A hundred years later and Clare Farrell has inherited a dilapidated old farmhouse in County Meath.

In 1914, Britain faces a new kind of war. For Edward and Beatrice Hunter, their children, servants and neighbours, life will never be the same again. For David, the eldest, war means a chance to do something noble; but enlisting will break his mother's heart. His sister Diana, nineteen and beautiful, longs for marriage. She has her heart set on Charles Wroughton, son of Earl Wroughton, but Charles will never be allowed to marry a banker's daughter.

Desperate to escape their stepfather’s house, sisters Amy and Lillian stow away aboard a train full of children being evacuated from London and the threat of Hitler’s bombs. Arriving in the seaside town of Worthing, they are taken in by kindly Norah and her husband, Jim. With their future now entrusted to strangers, can the girls finally find a safe harbour in these dark days of war? And will they find the strength to confront what they have been running from, when their past finally catches up with them?

London, 1938: Lizzie Larch is a 20-year-old hat maker in London's east end. She is happy and popular, but she carries a secret. Seven years ago she was viciously attacked and recovered in a private sanatorium where she miscarried a child. Lizzie has no memory of the night of the attack, but secrets cannot stay secret for too long. When she starts courting her boss' nephew, a shocking revelation surfaces; threatening to destroy their new-found happiness.

Barbara Taylor Bradford's A Man of Honor is the prequel to the New York Times best-selling and dazzling saga A Woman of Substance....

The villagers of Thrush Green celebrate Christmas traditionally, in a way that has hardly changed over the generations. Children eagerly hang up their stockings, families go to church together and everyone enjoys the treats of the festive season. And when it snows as the carol singers make their way round the cottages on the green, it looks as if Christmas will be perfect this year. But not everything is as peaceful as it seems.

With the help of her old diaries, Sarah Morris recounts her life story. The daughter of an English vicar, she begins by telling of her happy childhood with her brothers and sister in their country village. As a teenager, Sarah’s brother brings home a friend - Charles, a charming Austrian to whom she quickly becomes close. Over the years they fall in love, but when war breaks out Charles must return to Austria. While she awaits his return, Sarah quietly continues working hard and caring for her family. But she can’t stop wondering if she will ever see her sweetheart again…

Christmas is approaching on the island of Jersey, but Libby is feeling far from festive. Her police work and duties as vicar's wife weigh heavily on her, she's anxious about her troubled children, and now her best friend, Stella, has suddenly turned against her, citing a mysterious family grudge. Libby is devastated by Stella's unexpected coldness. But then her father shows her a diary written by her great-aunt Queenie, which sheds light on a long-hidden secret - one rooted in love, loyalty and betrayal.