Showing results by author "Mary Jane Staples" in All Categories

It's 1959, and Boots Adams and his wife, Polly, are at their favourite Camberwell pub when they witness with horror a sudden and vicious attack on the barman, Joe, by a knife-wielding thug. Is this a sign of the times? Is contempt for old traditions and enthusiasm for everything new and fashionable going to threaten the Adams family and their easy-going existence? While Gemma is courted by one of the young men who works for her father, her twin brother, James, finds himself affected by his girlfriend's intriguing family secrets.

A disastrous marriage has left the young and beautiful Lady Caroline widowed and vowing never to marry again. When she sees her younger sister, Annabelle, falling for a man who is notoriously unfaithful, she determines to intervene and save Annabelle from a similar fate, hiring the handsome and witty adventurer Captain Burnside to distract her. But all does not go to plan....

Tim Parkes was three when his parents were killed in a train crash and he went to live with his aunt May, first in New Cross and then to Walworth, where the living was cheaper. They managed splendidly - and then came the war. Tim Parkes became Gunner Parkes and Aunt May spent most of her nights in the Walworth air raid shelters with Tim keeping an eye on her whenever he was able.

1928: Edward Somers, passing the winter at the Hôtel de Corniche on the French Riviera, happens upon a nearby villa within which lives the elusive and beautiful Countess Katerina. Despite the fact she does not seem to be allowed visitors, he manages to forge a friendship and the pair grow closer and closer. But Edward cannot help but wonder: why is she confined to the villa, guarded by a man with a rifle? Who is observing her with a telescope? Why is she so reluctant to be photographed?

France, 1918: when Sophia, the rebellious daughter of a distinguished German general, witnesses a dramatic battle in the skies that leaves an English pilot without a plane and under the misapprehension that Sophia is on his side, she finds she has no choice but to agree to assist him in his attempt to avoid capture. He joins her in the family car she has stolen, trailed by both the German Army and a staff officer under strict instructions from Sophia's father to bring her home.