New England, 1992. Sophie’s hand trembles as she places the birthday card onto the creamy wood of her dresser – this one postmarked from far away, and signed with a name she’s never forgotten, despite their years apart. Downstairs, her family waits around a colourful pile of gifts – Happy 90th Birthday, Sophie! But Sophie has a gift of her own to give today – a tattered collection of photographs she’s never shown anybody.
France, 1944. Sophie is folding Camille into her arms. She’s smiling through tears at the plaintive cries of a tiny, perfect newborn baby – her first grandchild. As a midwife, she’s helped so many take their first breath, but this is special. In the street outside, Nazi soldiers patrol day and night, and each week more people disappear. Sophie clenches her fist and vows she’ll do anything to save Camille and her baby from that fate.
But when evil has stolen everything you know, even the truest promises will be tested. How could everything have gone so terribly, heartbreakingly wrong?
1941. After the death of her beloved mother, nineteen-year-old Romilly Brooks impulsively
accepts a job as a nanny, accompanying eight-year-old Freddie and his grandmother on a
sea voyage from war-torn London to the safety of New York. From the first, Romilly is
entranced by the opulent ocean liner… if only she could put the idea of German U-boats
circling beneath the waves out of her mind.
Then she meets Edward Witney. Handsome and attentive, Edward wants to know
everything about her, without sharing anything of himself. Why is this mysterious man
aboard the Lucknow, and who is the dark-haired woman with an unplaceable accent he
keeps whispering with behind closed doors?
Just as she’s beginning to unpick his secrets, a thunderous explosion tears through the night.
A German torpedo has struck the ship, and Romilly and Freddie are thrown into the deadly
Atlantic. Clinging to a flimsy raft, they spot Edward, unconscious nearby.
As they’re beginning to lose hope, they glimpse the Lucknow’s lifeboat six – it’s emergency
light a beacon of safety in the freezing night. But when Romilly and her companions try to
board, they’re told that there isn’t enough room for them all.
Romilly is suddenly forced to confront a terrible truth: that this is a night they might not
all survive…
A secret family history of love, anguish and betrayal. After her beloved grandmother Rozenn’s death, Morane is heartbroken to learn that her sister is the sole inheritor of the family home in Cornwall. With both her business and her relationship with her sister on the rocks, Morane becomes consumed by one question: what made Rozenn turn her back on her? When she finds an old letter linking her grandmother to Brittany under German occupation, Morane escapes to the coastal village where Rozenn lived in 1941 and uncovers a web of shameful secrets that haunted Rozenn to the end of her days. Was it to protect those she loved that a desperate Rozenn made a heartbreaking decision and changed the course of all their lives forever? Morane goes in search of the truth but the truth can be painful. Can she make her peace with the past and repair her relationship with her sister?
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Anna Hall was a beautiful and skilled Second World War air force operative, guiding RAF pilots during the Battle of Britain—before a bomb killed her sister and left her disfigured. In the aftermath, haunted by her failure to keep her sister safe, Anna retreats to a posting in the countryside—until a chance encounter spins her life in a new direction.
Recruited into a secret unit broadcasting destabilising propaganda to Nazi Germany, Anna finds new purpose in twisting truth with lies. But as she begins to come to terms with her past and with her new appearance, Anna’s present becomes more complicated. When blurred facts and fiction become normal, can anyone be taken at face value?
When her undercover work is threatened with discovery, Anna needs all her instincts to untangle the truth in the lies. But what will it take for her to break down the barriers she’s built around herself?
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England 1947. A young woman finds herself under close observation in an insane asylum, charged with a violent crime she has no memory of committing. As she tries to make sense of her recent past, she recalls very little.
But she still remembers wartime in Yugoslavia. There she and her boss risked everything to carry out dangerous work resisting the Germans -- a heroic campaign in which many brave comrades were lost. After that, the trail disappears into confusion. How did she come to be trapped in a living nightmare?
As she struggles to piece together the missing years of her life, she will have to confront the harrowing experiences of her special-operations work and peacetime marriage. Only then can she hope to regain the vital memories that will uncover the truth. Is she a violent criminal... or was she betrayed?
Buy the book.
But she still remembers wartime in Yugoslavia. There she and her boss risked everything to carry out dangerous work resisting the Germans -- a heroic campaign in which many brave comrades were lost. After that, the trail disappears into confusion. How did she come to be trapped in a living nightmare?
As she struggles to piece together the missing years of her life, she will have to confront the harrowing experiences of her special-operations work and peacetime marriage. Only then can she hope to regain the vital memories that will uncover the truth. Is she a violent criminal... or was she betrayed?
Buy the book.
Coventry 1939. Days before the outbreak of World War II, a terrorist bomb explodes on a busy street, killing and maiming innocent civilians. A man is hanged on the evidence given by a young witness. As time goes on she doubts her recollection, but her evidence has far-reaching consequences.
Over sixty years later, in the wake of the 7/7 bombings, Sara returns to her childhood home to find that her sister, Polly, missing for nearly twenty years, has finally come back, too. Why now? Where has she been? The sisters grew up under the fierce protection of their nanny, Bridie, herself haunted by a family secret. And there are other secrets that Bridie has kept from the two girls. Polly's return sets in motion events that will stretch the women's fragile bond to its breaking point.
Over sixty years later, in the wake of the 7/7 bombings, Sara returns to her childhood home to find that her sister, Polly, missing for nearly twenty years, has finally come back, too. Why now? Where has she been? The sisters grew up under the fierce protection of their nanny, Bridie, herself haunted by a family secret. And there are other secrets that Bridie has kept from the two girls. Polly's return sets in motion events that will stretch the women's fragile bond to its breaking point.
Restless, troubled Rosamond Hunter has spent most of her life running away from the past, filled with guilt about her involuntary role in her mother's death. When her nursing job brings her back to Fairfleet, her childhood home, to care for an elderly refugee, she is forced to confront the ghosts that have haunted her for so long.
Her patient, Benny Gault, first came to Fairfleet in 1939, having fled Nazi Germany on a Kindertransport train.
As his health fails, he and Rosamond begin to confide in each other. At first their tentative friendship revolved around the love they both shared for Rosamond's glamorous grandmother, Harriet, but as their trust in each other grows, guilty secrets are exposed and history is turned on its head.
Restless, troubled Rosamond Hunter has spent most of her life running away from the past, filled with guilt about her involuntary role in her mother's death. When her nursing job brings her back to Fairfleet, her childhood home, to care for an elderly refugee, she is forced to confront the ghosts that have haunted her for so long.
Her patient, Benny Gault, first came to Fairfleet in 1939, having fled Nazi Germany on a Kindertransport train.
As his health fails, he and Rosamond begin to confide in each other. At first their tentative friendship revolved around the love they both shared for Rosamond's glamorous grandmother, Harriet, but as their trust in each other grows, guilty secrets are exposed and history is turned on its head.
After her soldier husband is seriously injured and her marriage disintegrates, Meredith returns to Letchford, the school run by her father, outwardly a typically English headmaster. This is a tranquil refuge for Meredith. Until a shocking discovery is made in the history room. The police are called but all is not as it seems. On her journey to untangle the truth Meredith will discover that a manipulative member of staff is controlling goings-on, and that her own father's reputation is now at risk. More than one person is hiding a past filled with complicated secrets.
As the bunting goes up for the Golden Jubilee party in a small village, old family secrets are about to boil over. Ten-year old Jessamy Winter vanished from a Silver Jubilee party back in 1977. Her disappearance is woven into disturbing events in her family going back to the end of World War II. As the Jubilee cake is cut Jessamy's mother holds her breath to see whether her daughter will step out from the marquee and back into her life.
How do you rebuild your life when the world lies in ruins? Alix and Gregor are two young people pushed apart by a war that will destroy everything they hold dear: family, friends and loyalty, as the competing horrors wrought by Hitler and Stalin devastate central Europe. A novel about love and betrayal, hatred and heroism - a reminder that, even in the worst of times, the most courageous acts of kindness are possible.
Two women, divided by fifty years, united by their grief. Minna comes to the Dorset coast to recover from a terrible bereavement. Walking on the beach with her husband she finds the skeleton of a dead GI, a discovery that will bring her into contact with the enigmatic Felix, a woman who also has to come to terms with the past.