Showing titles in 20th Century

Elsie Barker is desperate for a new start after her husband leaves her. When her friend Izzy, herself planning an escape from her abusive boyfriend, tells her about the jobs going for women as narrowboat crew on the canals between London and Coventry, she jumps at the chance. Their new boss, Dorothy, is kind and fair, but it's clear she has a secret of her own. Their crew is completed by Tolly, searching for a new vocation now that her dream job has been snatched away. The work is hard, but the girls forge close friendships that will see them through the darkest times.

The early 1900s: Cradley Heath, a town in the Black Country near Birmingham and centre of the world’s chain-making trade. Lucy Butler, a young girl crippled by a cruel accident, lives with her two brothers and widowed mother, a chain-maker barely making ends meet. When tragedy strikes, the Butler family is separated and Lucy is taken in by Bertha Hipkiss, another impoverished chain maker, struggling to look after her own family.

For the district nurses of Victory Walk, there's been little time to bask in the triumph of D-day as London is facing a new threat - the buzz bombs. Everyone is terrified, never knowing where the next one will strike. Into this tense atmosphere, new nurse Iris must make her mark. She’s had more experience of nursing than many, but since arriving in East London from the countryside, she has struggled to fit in with the other staff. Meanwhile, Alice is facing an agonising wait to hear if her boyfriend, Joe, has survived D-day.

Frances Sweet can’t really remember her real parents. Brought up by her uncle, her cousins Ruby and Mary have always treated her like their little sister. As the war continues to keep her cousins separated from the men they love – Frances is growing up fast enough to catch the eye of dashing American soldier Declan. But she also has a greater longing – to find the mother who abandoned her years before.

Lincolnshire, 1910. Shunned by her own family, desperate for work and a place to stay, Esther Everatt walks through the night to Sam Brumby's farm, seeking the chance to earn her keep. Reluctantly, the old man takes her on. But her peace and security are cruelly shattered when old Sam dies. As a woman she has no right to inherit the lease on the farm.

For Eveleen Hardcastle life gets no better than growing up on Pear Tree Farm in the Lincolnshire countryside. Her family works hard for the Dunsmore estate and Eveleen finds it impossible to resist the charms of their employer's son, Stephen Dunsmore. But Jimmy, ever quick to antagonize, ensures that his sister's clandestine trysts do not remain so for long. Mary Hardcastle reacts to the news of her daughter's affair with a shocking ferocity, which seems to be borm more of bitterness than maternal protectiveness.

In many ways, my life has been rather like a record of the lost and found. Perhaps all lives are like that. It's when life started in earnest. Hertfordshire, 1928. The paths of Tom and Alice collide against a haze of youthful, carefree exuberance. And so begins a love story that finds its feet by a lake one silvery moonlit evening... It's when there were no happy endings. Paris, 1939. Alice is living in the City of Light, but the pain of the last decade has already left its mark.

Julianne Westcott was living the kind of life that other Protestant girls in prewar Liverpool could only dream about: old money, silk ball gowns, and prominent young men lining up to escort her. But when she learns of a blind-and-deaf brother, institutionalized since birth, the illusion of her perfect life and family shatters around her.

It's the most wonderful time of the year - and the East End Angels are working hard to keep Londoners safe. Frankie is trying hard to keep everything together. She can count on the support of the East End Angels, even in the face of family trouble. Winnie's beloved husband, Mac, is putting himself at risk every day in the bomb disposal unit and she's finding it hard while he's away. Bella is growing in confidence and happiness. Her friendship with Winnie's brother, James, is getting closer all the time.

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.

February 1942: Terrifying reports of the Wehrmacht’s advance across the Soviet Union spread like wildfire, striking new fear into the already oppressed German families living there. Harri Pfeiffer, now sixteen, is summoned to the forced labour camp in Chelyabinsk. Three years later, with the war finally over, Yvo Scholz arrives in Chelyabinsk, desperate for news of her brother. Still uncertain of the fate of her father, it takes all Yvo’s unshakeable courage to build a new life for herself. When their paths intersect, Harri and Yvo find a connection they never thought possible.

It is 1940 and Britain is at war with Germany. In London, eighteen-year-old Susan Banks longs to do her duty. Her secret ambition is to learn to fly - to serve her country and realise her dream. But she knows it is out of the question for a girl like her; a foundling, unwanted and unloved and dependent on strangers for her welfare. Just as she fears she will be trapped forever in a life of servitude and loneliness, she meets Tony Richards, a flying instructor based in Hampshire.

It's 1940, and Annie Walker is the formidable landlady of the Rover's Return in Weatherfield. Her husband, Jack, has received his call up papers, and Annie must run the Rovers on her own while juggling one baby and another on the way. Manchester has been severely bombed, and Weatherfield has already lost some of its residents and houses. Everyone is just about muddling through.

The secrets of an aristocratic dynasty are about to be revealed.... London, 1949. The New Look is in, Princess Elizabeth's wedding has raised morale and the capital is filled with a new energy. The Earl of Mowbray's niece, Alicia Stanton, is making her mark in the glamorous film world. Alongside her, Victoria Brown, a wartime evacuee, is starting out as a fashion photographer. Life is full of opportunity. But at Cavendon Hall, the stately home where they both grew up, the Second World War has exacted a terrible price....

Elizabeth Zott wird ihr Herz erobern, ganz sicher! Elizabeth Zott ist eine Frau mit dem unverkennbaren Auftreten eines Menschen, der nicht durchschnittlich ist und es nie sein wird. Doch es ist 1961, und die Frauen tragen Hemdblusenkleider und treten Gartenvereinen bei. Niemand traut ihnen zu, Chemikerin zu werden. Außer Calvin Evans, dem einsamen, brillanten Nobelpreiskandidaten, der sich ausgerechnet in Elizabeths Verstand verliebt. Aber auch 1961 geht das Leben eigene Wege. Und so findet sich eine alleinerziehende Elizabeth Zott in der TV-Show "Essen um sechs" wieder.

It is 1910 in the Lincolnshire Wolds. Fourteen-year-old Rosie Waterhouse lives with her father, Sam, well-known as the local poacher, in a cottage on the Thornsby Estate. The land is owned by William Ramsey, a harsh and heartless man, determined his only son, Byron, should marry well and produce an heir. Rosie is quick to learn the tricks of her father’s trade and it’s when she’s poaching fish from the estate’s stream that she meets Byron.

The Hall family live under the brooding shadow of the Black Mountains, in the mining town of Hillsbridge. Charlotte, James and their seven children are independent spirits, united by strong family values. Living in a mining community is never easy, and when the shadow of impending war threatens, they must pull together to face the hardship to come. Can this close-knit family overcome whatever tragedy life throws at them?

Bea Bell has lived in Grenada her whole life... until she meets handsome surveyor Patrick Anderson. The two are quickly swept up in a whirlwind romance that takes them across the crumbling Empire. But not everyone is as accepting of their interracial marriage. And soon they are faced with an impossible decision, one that threatens to tear them apart...

The novelist Maurice Bendrix's love affair with his best friend's wife, Sarah, had begun in London. One day, without warning, Sarah had broken off the relationship. It seemed impossible that there could be a rival for her heart.

It’s 1941, and as the Second World War rages on, girls from all over the country are signing up to the Women’s Land Army. Renowned for their camaraderie and spirit, it is these brave women who step in to take on the gruelling farm work from the men conscripted into the armed forces. When Yorkshire mill girl Una joins the cause, she wonders how she’ll adapt to country life. Luckily she’s quickly befriended by more experienced Land Girls Brenda and Grace.

When Brooklyn-born Barnard graduate Kathy Ross travels to post-World War II Berlin to help displaced refugees, she never expects to fall instantly, irrevocably in love. But David Kohn, a young American physician, is tormented by the deaths of his parents in the Holocaust, and uncertain about the future. Kathy impulsively marries David's cousin Phil - a decision that will have far-reaching consequences for everyone involved.

Journalist Janey Everett arrives at a remote village on the island of Kauai, determined to solve one of the world’s greatest unsolved mysteries. Ten years earlier, renowned Pilot Sam Mallory left to fight in the Spanish Civil War. He never returned. Now Janey has tracked down the woman she believes to be Mallory’s former flying partner, the legendary Irene Foster, and the one person who might know what really happened to him. But Irene is hiding a story of her own. The story of an extraordinary life and a secret love she’s not quite ready to reveal.

London, 1940. Britain is gripped by the terror of the Blitz, forcing Nell Spelman to flee the capital with her young daughter—leaving behind her husband, Arthur, the clockmaker who keeps Big Ben chiming. When Arthur disappears, Nell is desperate to find him. But her search will lead her into far darker places than she ever imagined.

January 1941. As the residents of Goodwill House feel the hard bite of winter, land girl Charlie Somiton is still glad of the warm friendships she has made there. Not just her fellow land girls, Daphne and Sal, but also dashing local G.P. Dr James Willoughby who looked after Charlie when she was injured at work. Charlie likes Dr Willoughby, but she fears that there can never be more between them than just friendship. Because despite her upper-class background, Charlie carries with her a terrible secret that she can never share with James.

Sam Cunningham just wants a quiet life with his lover, the cheetah-shifter Alistair Gatti. But that hope is dashed when a member of Mickey Sullivan’s gang dies inside the Gatti family’s speakeasy. Sullivan wants Sam to work for him, deciphering long-forgotten hexes as part of his illegal hexworks operation. At the same time, a corrupt prohibition agent demands Sam and Alistair investigate the gang member’s murder. Caught between gangster and agent, they must walk a fine line just to stay alive.

Étienne Lacroix and I had a fire I thought would never die. Our love was timeless. An irreversible decision sent me back to the present day with a family I barely recognize, but I am determined to find a way back to Étienne. I can survive time. But I can't survive life without him. Time bends to no one's demands, so I must fight with everything I have to return to the past. However, I am terrified that the past I once knew might not look the same, and the man who once called me his surviving trace will no longer be waiting for me.

On the eve of a world war, a forbidden love will blossom in the garden of a stately home, where one young woman will make a choice that will change her life forever. As the storm clouds of war gather, Cordelia seeks refuge in the grounds of her family estate. Handsome landscaper Isaac has recently arrived to tend to the gardens, and the connection between him and Cordelia is as immediate as it is forbidden. Isaac begins to secretly teach her how to cultivate the gardens, so when he and all the young men are called away to war, Cordelia takes over.

Cliffehaven, June 1944. As the planes continue to circle over Cliffehaven, Peggy Reilly’s sister, Doris, must seek refuge after a V-1 blast destroys her home. Rita, Sarah and the other residents at Beach View Boarding House quickly find their peace disturbed, and it’s not long before even Peggy loses her patience. But with more bad news to come, will Doris finally be forced to swallow her pride? Meanwhile Peggy’s father-in-law, Ron Reilly, is delighted when his sweetheart, Rosie, returns home. Until a heartbreaking confession suggests things may never be the same between them.

1942, Manchester. World War II is in full swing, and Lily Mullins is determined to do her bit for the war effort. Her friends and sweetheart have all joined up, and Lily's sure there must be a role for her that goes further than knitting socks for the troops! When she decides to volunteer for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, Lily soon discovers that she has a talent as a wireless operator. Helped along the way by a special gang of girls, she finds strengths she didn't know she had and realises that the safety of the country might just be in her hands....