Historical Homes

In August 1943, Sergeant Craddock leads his battle-weary platoon down Via Garibaldi in Catania, Sicily. Struck by the oppressive heat and the alien new surroundings, the men soon settle into this lull in their combat experience. The next few weeks take on a dreamlike quality as newfound relationships flourish and the war itself - let alone homelife in Britain - recedes into the distance. Against this backdrop, the second book of Alexander Baron's War Trilogy meditates upon friendship, loyalty and love.

On the Home Front, one girl is determined to make a difference. But Edie’s hopes of serving overseas are dashed when she’s sent to be a Land Girl in a sleepy Cumbrian village. Prue has shut the world out since her son went away to fight. Yet when she’s asked to take in a Land Girl and two little evacuees from London, she has no choice. Edie’s heart breaks, seeing the children’s cold welcome. But when the evacuees take in a stray puppy, even Prue can’t say no.

Vivianna Risler enjoys interacting with the young women of her daughter’s acquaintance. But when the girls form the Ladies Victory League undertake a letter writing campaign to the Doughboys, she supervises the activities with a mother’s eye toward propriety and protection.

In 1917 every man, woman, and child was called to civic duty as the “war to end all wars” encompassed the globe. When the patriotic call comes, Adella begins her campaign of encouragement by corresponding with the frightened and lonely soldiers. On the cusp of adulthood, the young woman is tired of living a cosseted life and hopes to gain her parents' support when she wants to volunteer her services to the war effort. Her mother worries for her safety, but Adella is more concerned for her heart.

Part of the Logger’s Ridge series, Home on the Ridge starts almost immediately after the end of Welcome Home Doc, which means that it overlaps the last part of May You Meet a Stranger’s time period and merges the storylines. Citizens of the small towns of Logger’s Ridge and Sunny Valley have overcome significant hurdles to recover from a series of economic disasters. Their hard work is paying off, and they see a bright future ahead. Much hard work and buried secrets still lie before them.

After three years in the service of the emperor of the Greeks, Ahl and his Viking friends have become very rich. Now the crew longs to return home with their wealth, their problem is that the emperor will not permit them to leave. They make a daring plan to escape. The route home is perilous as they navigate uncharted seas. They must overcome robbers, storms, and hostile strangers as they seek their way back to the Northlands with the riches they have earned.

In Worship of Hollow Gods, James Sniechowski bears witness to the world of a sensitive nine-year-old boy, subjected to the underbelly of his Polish Catholic family in working-class Detroit. The year is 1950. The family gathers for a Friday night family poker/pinochle party. The outcome reveals a world no one ever talked about then and they are forbidden to talk about now - the unspoken, the impermissible, the reality beneath every family's practiced facade - and what lies beneath when the front has been ripped away.

It is 1914 and The Great War is underway. When the call to arms comes, Nicholas Southwell won't be found hanging back. It's a pity he can't be so decisive when it comes to letting his estate manager Paul Haskell know what he feels before he has to leave for the front line. In the trenches Nicholas meets a fellow officer, Phillip Taylor, who takes him into the unclaimed territory of physical love. Which one will he choose, if he's allowed the choice?

Ireland, 1912. Fourteen members of a small village set sail on RMS Titanic, hoping to find a better life in America. For 17-year-old Maggie Murphy, the journey is bittersweet. Though her future lies in an unknown new place, her heart remains in Ireland with the sweetheart she left behind. Chicago, 1982. Adrift after the death of her father, Grace Butler struggles to decide what comes next. When her Great Nana Maggie shares the painful secret she harboured for almost a lifetime about the Titanic, the revelation gives Grace new direction.

Carrie Vernon knows her powerful father has no love for her except as a pawn in his evil plans. Receiving a letter asking her to elope with the handsome rancher who’s been courting her, she defies her father to follow her heart. Hank Anderson has survived on his small ranch with hard work and the sheer will to make it prosper, and he desires the beautiful Carrie by his side. After he refuses to sell his ranch to Carrie’s father, cattle and horses are stolen and fences destroyed. And he knows exactly who is causing the problems. But can he overlook the fact that maybe Carrie is part of her father’s plan?

Gold. Soldiers. Indians. Massacres. Can Charlotte survive life on the trail, or will the wildness of the west tear her family apart? After bidding farewell to her family, Charlotte drops everything to follow Sanderson to a promised job out west. The journey proves more difficult than any of them could have ever imagined. Wild animals, natural disasters, and a heavy Indian presence test not only Sanderson and Charlotte's strength and endurance, but their faith in each other as well.

For five years, May and evacuee Cliff, have fought against village bullies and bigots. Despite the hardships, they have built a loving mother and son relationship. As peace approaches, they must find a way for him to stay in the home he has come to love, or he will be sent back to a city he has forgotten and the mother who abandoned him, and May and Cliff will lose each other forever.

1940, Great Paxford, Cheshire: In Britain's darkest hour, an extraordinary community of women strive to protect the Home Front. When a plane crashes in the village, every one of their lives will change forever. The women of Great Paxford are no strangers to hardship and the extraordinary power of what women can achieve when they work together. Can Frances, Sarah, Pat, Steph and the women of the WI survive their greatest challenge yet?

Join us on a fascinating ramble through the towns and villages of the British Isles during the last 400 years in the company of some of its most illustrious chroniclers, including Jane Austen, William Cobbett, Daniel Defoe, Sir Walter Scott, Virginia Woolf, Francis Kilvert, Celia Fiennes, Chips Channon, Fanny Burney and many others, told entirely in their own words.

Home for Christmas is a tale of four very different young women thrown together by war. Finding freedom and independence – as well as love, passion and heartbreak – for the very first time, a unique bond is formed as the hostilities take their toll on Britain. It's September 1940 and the German blitz on London has just begun. The four young girls who live at No. 13 Article Row live under its constant threat. But life must go on…Tilly and Sally both work at Barts Hospital where they witness the cruelty of war first-hand.

Una deliciós divertiment, un monument a la ironia... aquesta novel, la àgil i sense pretensions, protagonitzada per tres homes i un gos emba rcats en una excursió pel Tàmesi, és una joia de l'humor de tots els t emps.

London, 1888. Abandoned by her mother at the age of seven, Jerusha Carey is no stranger to being left behind. Eleven years later she is married to Dan Applebee, an older, reliable farmer from Kent. Jerusha believes she has finally found the security she has always craved. But then disaster strikes. Kent, 1904. Two years after the sudden death of her husband, Jerusha is alone once again. But the arrival of the enigmatic Joe Finch, a traveller seeking work on the farm and a home for his daughter, sets Jerusha's life on a new path, giving her hope for her future.

Hattie finds herself relegated to the factory floor on her return from the war. Her workmates are unforgiving at Hattie's attempt to raise herself up, and she is soon ostracised. After journeying to Australia to marry her husband, Clara is betrayed and returns penniless, homeless and trying to raise a child alone. Lou's daughter and parents are killed by a bomb blast. By day she works at the factory; by night she roams the bomb sites, half mad with grief. These women forge a bond that will ultimately allow them to find hope.

East Kent, 1876. With doting parents and siblings she adores, 16-year-old Rose Cheevers leads a contented life at Willow Place in Canterbury. A bright future ahead of her, she dreams of following in her mother’s footsteps and becoming a teacher. Then one traumatic day turns the Cheevers’ household upside down. What was once a safe haven has become a place of peril, and Rose is forced to flee with the younger children. Desperate, she seeks refuge in a remote village with a long-lost grandmother who did not know she existed.

Before the Civil War had even begun, these young men, Zach and Luke, had already crossed paths while fishing in eastern Tennessee. After they parted ways, they never expected to later be pitted against each other in war - but, when Zach joined the Northern cause and Luke joined the Southern, that's exactly what happened. On the battlefields, each boy learns invaluable lessons about himself, and both contribute to the outcome of battles and, ultimately, to the war.