Showing titles in 20th Century

She is a servant girl... When her father becomes ill, Emily Carter finds herself sent into service at Priorsfield Manor in order to provide the family with an income. He will be the Lord of the Manor... Emily strikes up an unlikely friendship with the daughters of the house, as well as Nicolas, son of the Earl. But as the threat of war comes ever closer, she becomes even more aware of the vast differences between upstairs and downstairs, servant and master...If you like Downton Abbey you’ll love this!

It’s 1968 and it’s cold when Felicity arrives in London to stay with her mother, improve her English, do a secretarial course - and meet a suitable man. She is already missing her home in Provence and her father and his new wife and their extended family. But it’s only for a year she tells herself - and then she can go back to France and do what she really wants and become a painter. And then she bumps into Oliver who is quite the most interesting young man she has ever met.

December 1943. In the years before the rise of Hitler, the Gerber family’s summer cottage was filled with laughter. Now, as deep drifts of snow blanket the Black Forest, German dissenter Franka Gerber is alone and hopeless. Fervor and brutality have swept through her homeland, taking away both her father and her brother and leaving her with no reason to live.

Alice Pendelbury believes everything in her life is pretty much in order - from her good friends to her burgeoning career. But even Alice has to admit it’s been an odd week. Not only has her belligerent neighbor, Mr. Daldry, suddenly become a surprisingly agreeable confidant, but he’s encouraging her to take seriously the fortune-teller who told her that only by traveling to Turkey can Alice meet the most important person in her life. What’s more, the peculiarly insistent Mr. Daldry has even agreed to finance Alice’s trip - one that against all reason seems to be predestined.

Cilka was only 16 years old when she was taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp, in 1942. The Commandant at Birkenau, Schwarzhuber, noticed her long beautiful hair, and forced her separation from the other women prisoners. Cilka did what she had to in order to survive Auschwitz. And yet after Russian soldiers liberated Auschwitz in 1945, Cilka was charged as a collaborator and sentenced to serve a 15-year sentence for 'sleeping with the enemy'. Once again, she found herself on a brutal train journey, crammed into a carriage with many desperate women and children.

What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right? During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath. During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale. What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?

Left with an estate on the brink of bankruptcy after their father's death, Lady Marigold Fairfax and her brother open a private investigation firm marketed to the elite . . . to spy on the elite. Dubbed The Imposters, Ltd., their anonymous group soon becomes the go-to for the crème of society when they want answers delivered surreptitiously. But the many secrets Marigold learns about her peers pale in comparison to her shock when she and her brother are hired to investigate her best friend's father as a potential traitor.

England, 1942: Having fled Germany after her father was captured by the Nazis, Lilli Bergen is desperate to do something pro-active for the Allies. So when she’s approached by the Political Warfare Executive, Lilli jumps at the chance. She’s recruited as a singer for a radio station broadcasting propaganda to German soldiers – a shadow network. But Lilli’s world is flipped upside down when her ex-boyfriend, Bren Murphy, appears at her workplace; the very man she thinks betrayed her father to the Nazis.

It's 2014. Sensible Nora has always taken success for granted until suddenly her life begins to fall apart. Troubled by anxiety and nightmares, she finds herself drawn to the sweeping beaches of Tenby, a place she's been only once before. Together with a local girl, she rents a beautiful townhouse and slowly begins to settle in to her new life. But Tenby hides a secret, and Nora will soon discover that this little town by the sea has the power to heal even the most painful memories.

Munich. September, 1938. When twenty-one-year-old Madeleine Hamilton is asked to smuggle two young pupils to Berlin, she nervously agrees. But, when they run into trouble on the train, it is Maddie’s turn to be saved by a chance encounter with a handsome man. Bletchley Park. September, 1939. A year later, Maddie is undertaking training in Morse code when a familiar face shows up unexpectedly. The attraction between them is as deep as it is instant, but Maddie knows one person holds the potential to harm her country and her heart – and it is her duty to protect both.

The popular Curry Hotel continues to thrive in 1929 as more visitors come to Alaska and venture into the massive national park surrounding Denali. Recent graduate Thomas Smith has returned to the hotel and the people he considers family. But when a woman naturalist comes to fill the open position and he must work with her, everything becomes complicated. The summer brings unexpected guests and trouble to Curry. With his reputation at stake, will Thomas be able to protect Tayler from the danger that follows?

When Lady Moira Brennan leaves her home at Brennan Castle for the wilds of her own homestead claim in the Montana territory, she has no idea that a husband awaits her. Sold into marriage by her uncle, she arrives to find a bleak landscape of scarce farmers, all desperately trying to scratch out a living on their claims. Pryor MacAteer came to Montana himself only three years ago, and his farm has prospered. All that he needs to make it complete is a wife and family, one whose passage he paid, and whose name is on the marriage contract.

Dottie and Mary forged a friendship over a bag of penny sweets when they were eight years old. They've shared everything together since then. Now, at seventeen, they're both shopgirls working at Woolworths. As they go out in the world in pursuit of love and happiness and life becomes more complicated, the simplicity of their childhood dissolves. The heady excitement of first love will consume them both, but the pain of unintentional betrayal will test their friendship.

Paris 1930s. Childhood companions Fleur and Colette make a vow, under the trailing ivy of their secret garden, that they will be secret sisters forever. But as they grow up, the promises of childhood are put to the ultimate test. For Colette is the daughter of the house, and her life is all jazz clubs, silk dresses and chilled champagne, while Fleur is the orphan niece of the housekeeper and doesn’t feel like she belongs anywhere. Years later, in 1939, life as they know it will never be the same.

Lady Sophia Huntington Villiers is no stranger to intrigue, as her work with Alan Turing’s Bombe Machines at Bletchley Park during the war attests. Now, as part of Simon Barre’s covert team in postwar Vienna, she uses her inimitable charm and code name Starling to infiltrate the world of relics, uncovering vital information that could tilt the stakes of the mounting Cold War. When several influential men charge her with finding the death mask of Mozart, Sophie wonders if there is more than the composer’s legacy at stake and finds herself drawn to potential answers in Prague.

A classic tale of sensuous deception and bold new beginnings, from the remarkable New York Times bestselling author Lisa Kleypas.

The final book in the landmark Cazalet Chronicles, recently broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It is the 1950s and as the Cazalets' beloved matriarch, the Duchy, passes away, she takes with her the last remnants of a world - of great houses and servants, of class and tradition - in which the Cazalets have thrived. Louise, now divorced, becomes entangled in a painful affair; while Polly and Clary must balance marriage and motherhood with their own ideas and ambitions.

May 1941: German bombs drop on Dublin taking Sarah Gillespie’s family and home. Days later, the man she loves leaves Ireland to enlist. With nothing to keep her in Ireland and a burning desire to help the war effort, Sarah seeks refuge with relatives in England. But before long, her father’s dark past threatens to catch up with her. Sarah is asked to prove her loyalty to Britain through a special mission. Her courage could save lives. But it could also come at the cost of her own.

1942. When Helda Dahlstrøm flees her abusive husband and Nazi-occupied Norway with her eight-year-old son she doesn't know if they'll make it out alive. In her desperate journey to safety she'll find safety on the rocky shores of the Shetland Islands, rescued by Canadian Flight Sergeant Bill Gauthier. As WWII's destruction rages at their doorsteps, can love find its way through the rubble?

Money. Power. Prestige. These were the riches that destiny had awarded Edward Enger, but a greedy, ruthless family conspired against him and his own relentless desires enslaved him! As the descendant of a German immigrant, Edward built a business empire and dominated three generations of his family. Caldwell weaves the tale of a modern financial genius and the secret passions that obsessed him.