Showing results for "Claire storey" in Historical Fiction

Dora Fairweather wasn’t cut out to be a wife and mother, and as soon as she’s able, she turns her back on her young daughter Lissie. With no parents to protect her, Lissie has no option but the dangerous streets of soot-sodden Bradford or the workhouse orphanage. Life in the orphanage is bleak and Lissie longs for the warm embrace of her beloved father. As the years pass, Lissie learns to enjoy the camaraderie of the other girls in the workhouse, and when she’s taken under the wing of matron Connie Briggs, things begin to look up..

Orphaned as a child, Fliss Atkins has spent her life working at her uncle’s pub, The Bay Horse Inn, nestled along the banks of the River Calder. Life has been anything but easy for Fliss. Her aunt is unloving, and her older cousin Gerald is cruel. Then she meets Oscar Nolan, whose adventurous spirit makes her wonder if there might be more to life beyond the only home she’s known. Could Oscar and his dreams of travel be her chance at a fresh start?

Despite the hardships of life during wartime, Bobby Bancroft has never been happier. Engaged to her airman sweetheart Charlie, living in the beautiful Dales village of Silverdale and gainfully employed at The Tyke magazine, her life seems to be going exactly the way she always hoped it would. As the festive season approaches, Bobby is recruited to help produce a Christmas pantomime for the evacuee children billeted in the village. The project introduces her to some new friends, including a handsome Canadian, Flying Officer Ernie King, and her friend Topsy's upper-crust cousin Archie Sumner.

1925 - The Midland Canals. Born on the canals, feisty Beth Dawson, knows danger lurks in the shadows. When she falls victim to a vicious attack and knowing she might be pregnant, she quickly marries a fellow boatman. Her mundane existence is interrupted by the arrival of Anthony Wesley whose mission is to organise the impoverished boatmen for strike action. Anthony makes her feel valued and she wants to help the cause in any way she can. Along the way she makes friends with rebellious Abigail Gatehouse, daughter of the owner of the company. She too is in love with Anthony.

Wakefield 1870. On the banks of the River Calder, Meg Taylor struggles to care for her younger siblings and sick mother whilst her father is away working as a boatman on the canals. The slums where they live are rife with disease, and Meg longs for a different life, away from the grinding poverty, but she'll never leave her family. But with the canals slowly dying as trade moves to the railways, and with Meg’s father stubbornly holding onto the past, Meg fears her family’s future is going to get even bleaker. If only there was a way she could save them.

October 1940. Twenty-three-year-old Bobby Bancroft is working as a typist for a city newspaper, but she longs to be breaking the news herself. When she successfully applies for a junior reporter role at The Tyke, a magazine serving the Yorkshire Dales, she's thrilled – even if she only gets the position because so many men are away fighting. Bobby moves to the sleepy village of Silverdale, but she quickly discovers life in the countryside is a different world.

Norfolk, 1813. In the quiet Waveney Valley, the body of Mary Tyrell is staked through the heart after her death by suicide. She had been under arrest for the suspected murder of her newborn child. Mary leaves behind a young daughter, Hannah, who is later sent away to the Refuge for the Destitute in London, where she will be trained for a life of domestic service. It is at the Refuge that Hannah meets Annie Simpkins, a fellow resident, and together they forge a friendship that deepens into passionate love.

Blackpool, November 1942. Wartime worries fail to dampen the glitz and glamour of the ballroom in the run-up to Christmas. After all, life is for living. Newlywed Pearl's bliss is cut short when her beloved Bernie is called up into the Army. Will dancing at the Tower Ballroom take the edge off her heartache or will it throw temptation her way? Unexpected news of an inheritance presents Joy with a different dilemma. Should she move to Scotland in line with her parents' final wishes or stay in Blackpool to dance with Tommy, the man she loves?

Sylvia, Joy and Pearl are preparing to compete in a major national ballroom competition - not easy in wartime when travelling is difficult and air raids might mean that events can be cancelled at the last minute. But 'live for the day' is the motto for the times, and our girls plan to waltz their worries away. And beyond the pressures of the ballroom, the three friends support and encourage each other to fulfil their dreams in love, life and dancing...

Sylvia is the spoiled only child of an ambitious mother, Lorna Ellis, who runs a dancing school in Blackpool. Approaching 21, Sylvia is under pressure to scoop up prizes by fair means or foul. Pearl is the oldest daughter in a large, chaotic family who all work at the Pleasure Beach. She often sneaks away to watch ballroom contestants in their glittery finery. Joy is an evacuee who lost her parents to the Blitz. Now she lives and works in a shabby boarding house and works as a cleaner. Though shy and modest, she falls in love with the newest dance craze - the American Jitterbug.

June, 1941. When Bobby Bancroft arrived in Silverdale to take a job as a reporter on The Tyke magazine, the sleepy Yorkshire Dales village felt like a little pocket of a past long gone. But war finally seems to have come to Silverdale. The villagers face new hardships when shortages and rationing begin to bite, young men become scarce as more are called up, and Bobby finds herself juggling her job on the magazine with a new role as an ARP warden. Even her surly editor Reg and his wife are doing their bit, agreeing to take two evacuees from London into their home.

Holcombe Hall’s enigmatic owner has passed away, and now as the roaring twenties come to an end the upstairs and downstairs residents of Holcombe Hall begin a new era. Parlour maid Florrie Bickerstaff has always endured the quick temper of Lady Charlotte, calmly navigated the formidable housekeeper, Bertha and avoided the officious butler, Mr Arkwright. But it’s all been worth it for Sir Richard.

New York City, 1919. Lillie Mead mourns the love she lost in the war. But when a wealthy British friend offers her a reporting job across the pond, she hopes accepting will help her rebuild her life. She barely has time to unpack before she’s assigned the scoop of a poisoned socialite’s death. As the clues take a turn for the scandalous, Lillie unearths shocking skeletons in the victim’s closet. But she never expected the threads of the beloved woman’s life to weave with hers. Can Lillie expose the truth before her own death makes the front page?

December, 1919. Clever crime reporter Lillie Mead hoped to celebrate a peaceful Christmas in the English countryside. But when a close friend's colleague turns up dead, Lillie knows there'll be little festive spirit until she unwraps this mystery. Following the clues to the wintery Scottish Highlands, she hopes to stop the killer cold before the next body hits the snow. But after she connects the victims to a clandestine wartime committee, she puts herself firmly in the murderer's sights.

Lady Fleur Osborne knows several things to be true: her father would likely continue to turn away every suitor at the door, her sister could very well end up unmatched by fault of her clever mouth alone, and that Fleur herself is perfectly happy to say good riddance to the marriage mart, sealing her spinsterhood with her own stamp of approval.

1943. Lidia De Angelis has kept a low profile since Mussolini’s laws wrenched her from her childhood sweetheart. But when the Germans occupy Venice, she must flee the city to save her life. Lidia joins the partisans in the Venetian mountains, where she meets David, an English soldier fighting for the same cause. As she grows closer to him, harsh German reprisals and her own ardent patriotic activities threaten to tear them apart.

Oxford, England, 1922. Headstrong crime reporter Lillie Mead is planning her impending wedding. But when her spy fiancé disappears while she’s investigating a suspicious poisoning death, she fears her happily-ever-after will turn tragic. And when she travels to London to get help identifying the toxin, the chemist she consults is shot dead before her eyes.

A murder case. A love triangle. And a plucky journalist smack in the middle...England, 1922. Crime reporter Lillie Mead wants to take the country by storm. While her handsome fiancé hopes she'll quit her dangerous line of work, the journalist dreams of taking her talents national. When she's called in to cover the murder of a wealthy duke, she puts her relationship troubles on hold to focus on locating the crime's sole witness before the killer does...

1944: Bologna, Italy, and the streets are crawling with German soldiers. Nineteen-year-old Leila Venturi is shocked into joining the Resistance after her beloved best friend Rebecca, the daughter of a prominent Jewish businessman, is ruthlessly deported to a concentration camp. 1981: Exchange student Rhiannon Hughes arrives in Bologna and meets Leila, her landlady. Soon, Rhiannon finds herself being drawn into a web of intrigue. Leila’s nephew seems to be interested in a far-right group, but how is the nefarious leader connected to Leila?

Lady Calliope Andrews was warned to stay away from Jonah Adams, the Viscount of Goodland. More than one person issued that warning, but her brother emphasized it the loudest. So of course, she had to do the exact opposite. The charming rogue intrigued her....