Showing results by author "Faye Godwin" in All Categories

Tilly Barton can’t wait for Christmas - it’s her favorite time of the year. Her seafaring husband, Ray, is due home any moment now. Soon, she’ll be baking gingerbread and decorating the tree with her three young children. But, everything changes when Ray is tragically lost at sea. Tilly finds herself a widow with three little ones to think of in the brutality of a London winter. They’re cast into a turmoil of hardship, with Tilly struggling and scraping to keep her little family alive. Christmases come and go, bringing little joy with them.

Alice Thorton is only five years old when her parents are killed in an accident. Together with her two little sisters, she is sent to live in a dismal part of London near the docks. Her grandfather loves them, but Christmas is a quiet, lonely affair in his little cottage. As the streets surrounding them turn dangerous, the girls are confined to the cottage. Alice’s only friend is Charlie Tillman, a cheerful young dockworker who is always looking out for her and her sisters.

London. 1854. For years, Fern Hall has lived in an orphanage in the East End of London. It’s a brutal life of endless chores and punishments for even the smallest infractions. She’s able to escape it for a time when she’s hired out as a temporary maid to the wealthy Hawk family, but a servant’s lot is little better. Gerard Hawk, the second son of the prosperous merchant, is drawn to Fern from their very first meeting when she comes to work for his parents.

Christmas is always magical for Emmy—a season filled with carols, charity parties at the church, and cherished moments with her mother, Alice. She shares these joys with Reggie, her best friend since childhood, and though they lived humbly in the tenements, her heart is full as long as he is near.

As a parlor maid, Blanche Eplett is invisible to everyone in her life…except for Ludwig Turner, the rakishly handsome master of the house. When Ludwig’s interest in Blanche becomes something more amorous, she finds herself pregnant with his child and soon gives birth to a little girl named May. At first, Ludwig is there to care for them both. But when tragedy strikes, Blanche and May are thrown out onto the streets. Blanche will do anything to care for May and to protect the child’s kind and loving heart—a heart soon enamored by a fellow street urchin named Taylor Harris.