Showing titles in 20th Century

Opening five years before the start of A Woman of Substance, A Man of Honour begins with 13 year-old Blackie O’Neill facing an uncertain future in rural County Kerry. Orphaned and alone, he has just buried his sister, Bronagh, and must leave his home to set sail for England, in search of a better life with his mother’s brother in Leeds. There, he learns his trade as a navvy, amid the grand buildings and engineering triumphs of one of England’s most prosperous cities and starts to dream of greater things.

Three very different women are recruited to the mysterious Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Vivacious debutante Osla has the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses - but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, working to translate decoded enemy secrets. Self-made Mab masters the legendary codebreaking machines as she conceals old wounds and the poverty of her East-End London upbringing. And shy local girl Beth is the outsider who trains as one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts.

“Skillfully researched and powerfully written, The German Wife will capture you from the first page.” —Madeline Martin, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Bookshop in London For fans of All the Light We Cannot See and The Tattooist of Auschwitz—from the New York Times...

Germany 1939 – To save her baby, Trudi Beck must hand her over to strangers who will take her across the sea to a foreign country. Trudi has already lost her husband to the Nazis, her stepsons are taking the train too. Walking away from the train station with empty arms is the hardest thing she's ever done. London 1939 – Newly married, Sally Matthews, is alone again. Her husband is away training for war, leaving her days and home empty. She volunteers to help with the children from the Kindertransport, becoming captivated by five-year-old Tom and his baby sister, Liesel.

Nineteen-year-old Libby moves to Berlin to escape her suffocating family - but instead of offering freedom, the city is under siege by the Nazis. Jewish books are burned, storefronts smashed and every day innocent people vanish into thin air. Libby cannot - will not - turn a blind eye. When Libby meets Harro, she knows there’s more to him than his dazzling smile and cornflower-blue eyes. The whip marks on his back, scars from the SS, tell his true story: He is a resistance fighter.

Brought to you by Penguin. Every life is both ordinary and extraordinary, and Logan Mountstuart's - stretching across the twentieth century - is a rich tapestry of both. As a writer who finds inspiration with Hemingway in Paris and Virginia Woolf in London, as a spy recruited by Ian Fleming and...

Brought to you by Penguin. It is 1941 and Germany has won the war. Britain is occupied, Churchill executed and the King imprisoned in the Tower of London. At Scotland Yard, Detective Inspector Archer tries to do his job and keep his head down. But when a body is found in a Mayfair flat, what at...

Singapore, 1942. As Japanese troops sweep down Malaysia and into Singapore, a village is ransacked, leaving only two survivors and one tiny child. In a neighbouring village, 17-year-old Wang Di is bundled into the back of a troop carrier and shipped off to a Japanese military brothel where she is forced into sexual slavery. After 60 years of silence, what she saw and experienced there still haunts her present.

Es gibt keinen Weg, der nicht irgendwann nach Hause führt Am Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs wird mitten in Deutschland ein kleiner Junge gefunden, der nichts über sich selbst und seine Herkunft weiß. Sein Alter wird geschätzt, er bekommt den Namen Hartmut und wächst in einem katholischen Kinderheim auf, in dem viel Ordnung und noch mehr Zucht herrscht. Dort lernt er die etwas ältere Kriegswaise Margret kennen, die ihn schon im Heim zu beschützen versucht. Die beiden werden zu einer unverzichtbaren Stütze füreinander und beschließen, sich nie wieder loszulassen.

The war is over; Hitler is dead - and yet his evil legacy lives on. Saffron Courtney and her beloved husband, Gerhard, only just survived the brutal conflict, but Gerhard's Nazi-supporting brother, Konrad, is still free and determined to regain power. As a dangerous game of cat and mouse develops, a plot against the couple begins to stir. One that will have ramifications throughout Europe....

1939. After the sudden and tragic loss of her husband, Helen is returning home to her mother’s house in Biggin Hill, Kent - the one place she vowed she’d never go back to again. Alone and not knowing where to turn, Helen finds herself joining the local women’s sewing circle despite being hopeless with a needle and thread. These resourceful women can not only make do and mend clothes, quilts and woolly hats, but their friendship mends something deeper in Helen, too.

Brought to you by Penguin. A rich, atmospheric WWII thriller from the award-winning author of Moskva and Nightfall Berlin An unlikely spy. July 1940. As Britain braces itself for invasion, ex-Tommy and safecracker Bill O'Hagan is glad to have escaped the battlefield. But when a job goes wrong...

Gosport, 1943. Rita, Amelia, Ruby and Dorothy are all doing their bit to help Britain win the war. Their work at Priddy's munitions factory, is dangerous and gruelling, but undoubtedly necessary. However, when an explosion at the factory almost kills several of the workers, the girls decide it's time to find another way to contribute. Amelia sees an advertisement in the Evening News, seeking Hop Pickers in Kent, accommodation provided. Weeks later, they leave Gosport, ready for a new adventure.

In the present, Sacha knows the world's in trouble. Her brother, Robert, just is trouble. Their mother and father are having trouble. Meanwhile the world's in meltdown - and the real meltdown hasn't even started yet. In the past, a lovely summer. A different brother and sister know they're living on borrowed time. This is a story about people on the brink of change. They're family, but they think they're strangers. So: where does family begin? And what do people who think they've got nothing in common have in common?

An unforgettable story about loss and new love written and read by the bestselling author of Brooklyn and Long Island 'The most striking example of Tóibín's emotional control . . . [An] eloquent expression of the bond between a mother and a son' – The Guardian One snowy morning, after...

From the bestselling author of A PLACE CALLED WINTER comes MOTHER'S BOY, a superb historical novel of Cornwall, class, desire and two world wars. 'One of the joys of Gale's writing is how even the smallest of characters can appear fully formed, due to a charming wickedness alongside deeper...

Brought to you by Penguin. A master forger transforms a young woman’s life – but what will it cost her? In post-war Flanders, Adelais de Wolf's family is slowly, inexplicably, falling apart: her mother evermore lost to religious devotion, her father to alcohol. But with the death of a...

In April 1942, Hitler and Mussolini plan the huge offensive on the Eastern Front that will culminate in the greatest battle in human history. Hundreds of miles away, Pyotr Vavilov receives his call-up papers and spends a final night with his wife and children in the hut that is his home. As war approaches, the Shaposhnikov family gathers for a meal: despite her age, Alexandra will soon become a refugee, Tolya will enlist in the reserves, Vera, a Nurse, will fall in love with a wounded pilot and Viktor Shtrum will receive a letter from his doomed mother which will haunt him forever.

Brought to you by Penguin. February 1944. Six months since Nazi forces occupied Rome. Inside the beleaguered city, the Contessa Giovanna Landini is a member of the band of Escape Line activists known as ‘The Choir’. Their mission is to smuggle refugees to safety and help Allied soldiers, all...

Since the house was built in 1810, the Danes have always lived at Woodspring. Over the generations it has given them shelter, solace and joy. War brings change, and the next three generations of the family will lead very different lives, at home and abroad. Peace is shattered, pain is unavoidable, loves are found and lost, but Woodspring is constant, and will always draw them back...