Item category 1: Family Saga

London, 1900. Hester Stanmore watches in disbelief as the court declares her attacker 'not guilty', and the room erupts into chaos. The man in the dock is being congratulated as if he were a hero, but she has seen the madness in his eyes when he had attacked her. In a rage he had beaten her sense...

Afaf Rahman, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, is the principal of Nurrideen School for Girls, a Muslim school in the Chicago suburbs. One morning, a shooter - radicalized by the online alt-right - attacks the school.

From the age of eight, sixteen-year-old Charity Crosse has been living rough with her grandfather and begging on the streets. When her grandfather passes away, Charity is helped by a kindly doctor who introduces her to bookseller, Jethro Dawkins. He takes Charity in to help in his bookshop and ke...

Molly McKenzie is only eleven years old when her abusive father beats her to within an inch of her life. Escaping from the hovel she calls home, Molly is found by kind fisherfolk, sick and near death. With them she experiences the love of a family for the first time and, even though life is hard,...

Molly McKenzie is only eleven years old when her abusive father beats her to within an inch of her life. Escaping from the hovel she calls home, Molly is found by kind fisherfolk, sick and near death. With them she experiences the love of a family for the first time and, even though life is hard,...

Everyone recognises the cry of Meg Sutcliffe as she plies her trade along the back streets of Ryhope. She learnt the ropes from her dad when he returned from the War. But when tragedy struck, Meg had no choice but to continue alone, with only her trusty dog Spot, and beloved horse Stellar, for co...

Continuing the saga begun in 'Chocolate Girls', and set in 1960s Birmingham, this is a story of families whose lives are entwined, of belonging and loss - and of a young woman's search for transforming love.

When Stella Simmons comes to the Devonshire village of Burracombe to start her teaching career, she is alone in the world. Orphaned as a child and brought up in a children's home, she was separated from her sister and has never been able to trace her.

It's 1940 and Britain is at war with Germany. For Cora Stubbs and her younger siblings this means being evacuated to the safety of the English countryside. But little does Cora know that Hitler's bombs are nothing compared to the danger she will face in her new home, and she is forced to grow up ...

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 th...