"[A] winning tale of struggle and hard-won reward" featuring "sharp-tongued, viciously funny Kathy Kelly" from the bestselling author of Finding Peggy ( Publishers Weekly).Kathy Kelly, born in the heart of Glasgow's East End, comes from a family torn apart by conflict. She grows up with a sharp wit and a quick temper, constantly challenging those who cross her: her reproving grandmother; Con, her hard-drinking father; even the local priest—Kathy t...

*Now features never-before-published extra chapter*Glasgow in the 1950s was a deprived and often violent place. Meg Henderson was part of a large family, and when the tenement block in which they lived collapsed they had to move to the notorious Blackhill district where religious sectarianism and gang warfare were part of daily life. Yet despite appalling conditions , there was warmth, laughter and a remarkable spirit, andMeg's mother and her Aunt Peggy, both ideal...

They called her Auld Nally - the local moneylender in one of Glasgow's roughest areas. But once she'd been Alice McInally, beautiful and loved by her childhood sweetheart. She hadn't anticipated the outcry when they announced their betrothal - he was Catholic and she was Protestant. Cast out by their well-to-do families, the couple's hope of a bright future flounders in the realities of World War I Glasgow, where Alice struggles to make ends meet in the only way she can. Somehow, she will ...

The MacLeans live in a close-knit community in Glasgow at the start of the Second World War. When Ruby MacLean is seventeen, she falls pregnant and is forced to marry Gerry Reilly. As their daughter is born, Gerry heads off to war, leaving Ruby to cope alone. Many years later, now retired, Ruby looks back at her family history and uncovers a tale of lies that she could never have suspected...

Orkney 1942. Forbidden lovers, divided by war, united by a secret act of creation.Amid the turmoil of the Second World War, a group of Italian prisoners is sent to the remote Orkney island of Lamb Holm. In the freezing conditions, hunger and untold hardships of Camp 60, this ragtag band must work together to survive.Domenico, a talented artist, is among them. He inspires his comrades to create a symbol of peace during these dark days of war, and out of drif...

The Breadmaker's Saga follows the story of a Glasgow working class community living through the dark days of the Depression and the Second World War.Clydend, McNair's Bakery and the surrounding tenements, are all vividly and absorbingly depicted, as are the lives and loves of people like Catriona, a young woman trying to cope with an overbearing husband; the foreman baker Baldy Fowler and his tragic wife, Sarah; Alec Jackson, the philandering insurance sal...

Timeless family drama from the best-selling author of Tuppence to Cross the Mersey. With over 3 million copies sold around the world, Helen Forrester’s heart-warming and gripping fiction, set in Liverpool during the Depression, continues to move readers.Life in a Liverpool tenement block is a grim struggle for Martha Connelly, who works hard every day to protect her family from hunger and disease.When rumours of war reach the neighbourhood in 1938, it becomes clear that lif...

The poignant and powerful second novel from the bestselling author of Custard Tarts and Broken Hearts.London, 1923.Bermondsey is the larder of London with its bustling docks, spice mill, tannery and factories.Milly Colman knows she's lucky. Working at Southwell's jam factory all week means she can have a pay packet and a laugh with her mates come Saturday. It's a welc...

The prequel to the Campbell family saga.Anna Campbell, a Leith 'worthy' in the full sense of the word, never turns anyone away from her door. The condemned tenement is the home to many families in dire poverty and Anna, known as a 'wise-woman', hatches and despatches and treats all minor ailments for her friends. She dedicates her life to raising six children, four boys and two girls who are not her own. The girls, Rachel and Bella, remain with her into adulthood a...

Happiness comes at a price…Though besotted with one another, Amy Miller and Thomas Frost have never had it easy. From very different sides of the tracks, their romance was doomed from the moment Thomas’s overbearing mother Celia vowed to separate them.Celia writes to her eldest son, asking him to come home and help to split the pair up. But when Jeremy returns to Battersea it’s clear he wan...

Connie and Eva are best friends but their families are the worst of enemies…During the VE Day celebrations, two women meet completely by chance. As Connie and Eva talk they discover they are from feuding families, the Maxwells and the Dixons. But when they both begin nurses’ training, they can’t deny their natural bond of friendship and become more like sisters.Their lives intertwine as Connie starts courting Eva’s brother, Roger, a bomb disposal expert. In her heart, Conni...

As a former evacuee, feisty Ruby is forced to fend for herself when she returns to her family in London. Set in the aftermath of WW2 and based in Southend, this gripping saga is richly evocative of the period.Special low price for a limited period to discover this new talent.Home is where the heart is…After having lived peacefully in Cambridgeshire as an evacuee, 15-year-old Ruby Blakeley is bought back to reality when her bully of a brother Ray comes to take her ho...