Showing results by narrator "Annie Aldington" in All Categories

It’s Christmas 1880 in London’s East End, and a dying Irish girl leaves her baby in the care of the Sisters of Clemency. The nuns raise little Ettie O’Reilly as their own. But the lives of the nuns and orphans are soon crushed by an unexpected turn of events. Ettie is at her lowest ebb when she is betrayed by the boy who has promised his undying love and loyalty. She is faced with the revelation of a heart-wrenching secret.

Christine Banner is alone after her father's death. Determined to make her own way in the world, she stumbles onto an estate in the New Forest where she finds work that she loves. However, when the future looks uncertain, Christine's skill at handling some of the large and difficult warhorses shines through and captures the attention of the son of the estate owner. In the face of grief, sadness and disappointment, Christine's intelligence and strength will be tested until she finds the place she can truly call home.

Carla Scofield has looked after her family since she was a teenager, but it's never been a bother because there isn't anything she wouldn't do for those closest to her. Warm, friendly, and with the ability to make everyone around her laugh, she carries her burden proudly. As the years roll past, Carla sees life around her change dramatically. Wartime brings new challenges and a new job for Carla in a sewing factory, and she shines.

London, 1912. Identical twins Lester and Lillia Holdsworth are destined for the stage. Lester is a brilliant pianist, Lillia a magnificent opera singer. But their father has other ideas. Lester is sent to a military academy while Lillia must marry Lord Dalton - a self-righteous, pompous friend of her father's looking for a young wife to give him an heir. Yet their plans to defy their father's wishes are put on hold when war breaks out in 1914.

An incredible true story of a young nurse working in the East End of London during the Second World War.In 1938, 18-year-old Phyllis Ellsworth packs her bags, says good-bye to her anxious parents and sets off from her quiet seaside home for the Hackney Hospital in London's bustling East End, where she is to fulfill her dream to train as a nurse. At first it is a whirlwind of long days, hard work, new friends and plenty of mischief....

East London, 1938. Nine-year-old Daisy Purbright is a country girl at heart, and together with beloved brother Bobby, they've enjoyed the endless freedoms of rural England. But when her father gambles the family's fortunes on a speculative investment in London's docklands, Daisy and her family are swept up into the intrigue, danger and excitement. The Purbrights desperately attempt to settle to a new life in the East End, but the whisperings of war grow louder. Then Adolf Hitler conducts a paralysing bombardment on London, and war tightens its grip.

1934: Lizzie Flowers has been mother and protector to her East End family, the Allens of Langley Street, since she was 15. Even when her doomed marriage to Frank Flowers collapses, she sacrifices her own happiness to keep the family united. But when Lizzie buys the infamous dockland's pub the Mill Wall, she discovers she's bitten off more than she can chew.

Aggie has tasted freedom working at the local munitions factory. But the Great War is coming to an end, and the men are coming home. Aggie can't bear the idea of going back into service. She wants more from her life - and becoming a Copperette - a member of the Women's Police Service - might help her move up in the world. Mim just wants to do her bit for her country. She's prepared to work hard to help her fellow women and keep up morale. She even takes Aggie in to her house to help with her training.

The Lennicker sisters live in a cottage nestled amongst the counting houses, shops and inns, where the smugglers plot and the seamen drink. When their father – a fisherman and smuggler – is murdered by a rival gang, the eldest daughter, Louisa, is forced to carve out a living by trading illegally in French lace. She will do anything to keep a roof over her sisters’ heads, but what she truly desires is a way of wreaking revenge. With the threat of Napoleon approaching Britain’s shores, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

The first time Annie Sweet sees 43 Stanley Road, the house is so perfect she feels almost as if it has chosen her. She longs to move in, but with her husband increasingly distant, and her daughter wrapped up in childhood, Annie is left alone to mull over the past.

Like a princess in a fairytale, Grace Hamilton has been showered with blessings: professional success, a happy marriage, and she even lives in a beautiful castle. But the only thing she really wants – her heart’s desire – is the one thing she can never have. Her sister, the beautiful Susannah, has made a mess of her life. Like a reverse Midas, everything she touches turns sour. But fate puts Grace’s future in Susannah’s hands, changing the balance of power between the sisters forever.

It is 1938, and the threat of war looms on the streets of London. But when the lights go down in the cinema aisles, usherette Daisy Blake is transported to a world of glamour and romance. Among the staff there is much merriment, and Daisy soon falls in love with the handsome organist, Al Dawson. Then war is declared, and, just after Al leaves for the front line, Daisy discovers she's pregnant.

When Annie and her brother Cory are orphaned Hettie's mother takes them in. Hettie and Annie sell watercress on the streets of Victorian London to make a living. Annie's dissatisfaction grows and her reckless ambition takes her on a separate path. After she disappears in mysterious circumstances, Hettie sets out to find her. While searching for Annie, in the darkest and most dangerous part of London, she uncovers the corruption and depravity of Victorian society. Secrets are revealed that put both their lives put in danger. Can Hettie find her friend before it's too late?

Raised in the slums in 1850s London, Celia Laws is a rarity, an educated young woman whose creative skills have attracted notice. But with family to care for, circumstances have driven her to pickpocketing. In Celia's harsh world, it's a small step from picking pockets to prostitution. When a young man offers her a fortune to spend a week with him, she takes the money and runs. But Celia's conscience can't allow her to forget the money she stole, and she is soon brought face-to-face with her past…

When Polly Pritchard learns that her husband has been killed in action, she brings up their young daughter, Emmie, alone. To make ends meet, she gets a job at the Cherry Ballroom in West London, and it is here that she meets James, a Canadian airman, and they fall in love. But then Polly's husband turns up very much alive.... Life is even harder for Polly after the war. James has gone, her husband is involved in a criminal gang, and their daughter suffers from an illness that leaves her deaf.

It is autumn 1940 and, as the bombs rain down on London, a close-knit community struggles to survive. Working at the local post office, Bessie Green does her best to keep her customers' spirits up, but when she receives a telegram addressed to her parents, there's nothing she can do to prevent the heartache that lies ahead. Then Bessie hears that 11-year-old Daisy Mason has been orphaned in a blast, and she's sure that taking Daisy into their home is just what her parents need to help them overcome their grief.

Now that Molly Dawson's family have grown up and left home, she has every reason to expect that her life on the Woodchurch Manor estate with her husband, head gardener Charlie, will settle into happy contentment. It seems, though, that her estranged half-sister, Harriet, has other ideas. When the secret Molly has kept for more than 25 years is revealed in front of her whole family, Molly's relationship with her son and her husband begins to crumble. And when she takes a trip away from home to allow things to settle, Harriet steps in - with devastating consequences.

The third and final novel in the Ten Bells Street saga series.

Some secrets are better left buried.... When 17-year-old Phoebe Turner visits Wilton's Music Hall to watch her Aunt Cissy performing on stage, she risks the wrath of her mother Maud who marches with the Hallelujah Army, campaigning for all London theatres to close. there, Phoebe is drawn to a stranger, the enigmatic Nathaniel Samuels, who heralds dramatic changes in the lives of all three women. When offered the position of companion to Nathaniel's reclusive wife, Phoebe leaves her life in London's East End for Dinwood Court a house that may well be haunted....

Edith and Ada run Jimmy's Hope House, where they care for unmarried mothers and where Edith, a doctor, offers free medical help to the poor of London's East End. Both are struggling to overcome trauma from their past. For Edith there is the constant ache and yearning for her twin girls, Elka and Ania, from whom she was separated in 1918. For Ada there is the threat of her sister returning.... As the Nazis strengthen their grip on Poland, sisters Elka and Ania are forced to make a difficult decision: travel to England to find their birth mother or stay and fight?