Showing results by narrator "Anne Dover" in All Categories

As London goes up in flames during the Blitz, two sisters from Bermondsey find their lives changed out of all recognition.... When a bombing raid destroys nearly everything she holds dear, May joins the ATS and becomes a gunner girl. Peggy, May's elder sister, is trapped in a stifling marriage, yet amid the chaos of war, a route to freedom beckons. From war will come hardship and tragedy as well as new, unexpected friendships and love affairs.

Jessie Burton is lively and intelligent - she wants more than the respectable life in service her mother has planned for her. Times are changing, railways are being built across the land bringing new freedom and possibilities. Jessie tastes that freedom when she meets an ambitious young navvy...

Ellie is a sweet-natured brunette, generous of heart with a sparkling smile and an accent that reveals her East End background. Bonny is beautiful and spoilt, with cascades of blond hair, the brightest pair of blue eyes and a mouth like Cupid's bow. The two girls meet in London at the end of the war when, seduced and abandoned by two American airmen, they pool their wits and resources and set off to make a living on the stage.

Set in 1920s London, this is the inspiring story of Kate Goss' struggle against poverty, hunger and cruel family secrets. Her mother died in a fall, her father has vanished without trace, and now her aunt and cousins treat her viciously. In a freezing, vermin-infested garret, factory girl Kate has only her own brave spirit and dreams of finding her father to keep her going. She has barely enough money to feed herself, or to pay the rent. The factory where she works begins to lay off people and it isn't long before she has fallen into the hands of the violent local money-lender.

From the beloved and bestselling Anna Jacobs' comes the second novel in her new Lancashire-based saga. 1931, Lancashire: When Finn Carlisle loses his wife and unborn child, he spends a few years travelling to keep the sad memories at bay. Just as he's ready to settle down again, his great-uncle...

Born in the workhouse and adopted by a former suffragette, Frances Brakespeare was encouraged from an early age to be strong, independent and to pursue a career as a doctor. The tragic loss of the love of her life in the Great War propels Frances to commit to her one true vocation. Rebelling against the unfair treatment of female doctors Frances is dismissed from her London post and things continue to take a turn for the worse when Izzy, her benefactress dies and Frances finds herself homeless.

The second in the heartwarming Lancashire saga series that began with SALEM STREET, by beloved author Anna Jacobs. In 1845 Annie Gibson can finally leave Salem Street. Her dreams of being able to open an elegant dressmaking salon in the High Street of Bilsden, a Lancashire mill town, have come...

When Cissie Brody was 15, fever swept the English countryside, killing her parents and leaving her to care for her nine younger siblings. Rejecting the offers of town officials to care for the children in the workhouse, Cissie is determined to keep the family together and moves them to a cave-like dwelling place on the Fells.

The Sunday Times bestseller following the inspiring story of life as a shepherdess, by the star of More4's Our Farm Next Door: Amanda, Clive & the Kids and Channel 5’s Our Yorkshire Farm. Amanda Owen has been seen by millions on ITV's The Dales and Channel 5's Our Yorkshire Farm, living a life...

Roddy Greenbank was brought by his father to the remote Northumberland community of Langley in the autumn of 1807. Within hours of their arrival, however, the father meets a violent death and the boy is left with all memory of his past life gone. Adopted and raised by old Kate Makepeace, Roddy found his closest companions in Hal Roystan and Mary Ellen Lee. These three stand at the heart of a richly eventful narrative that spans the first half of the 19th century, their lives lastingly intertwined by the inexorable demands of a strange and somewhat cruel destiny.

Handsome Frank Rossi took Matty Gilbie away from her working class roots in East London, promising her fame and fortune. As his wife, she would be half of a power couple. But the Wall Street Crash puts paid to all that, and as Frank becomes more violent, Matty flees in the dead of night. Once home in Bermondsey, she goes into hiding, but Frank is on the move, determined to find her and get her back.

Annabella LaGrange was the only child of a wealthy family, owners of a glassworks in the North-East of England. When Annabella was seven, she thought the world a delightful place to live in, and only occasionally wondered why her parents never took her beyond the gates of their magnificent country estate. When she was ten she decided that the seclusion didn't really matter because when she grew up she would marry her handsome cousin Stephen and never be lonely again.

The third of five books in the heartwarming Lancashire-based Gibson Family series. Book three in the heartwarming Lancashire-based Gibson series by beloved saga author Anna Jacobs. It's 1848 and preparations are underway for Annie Gibson's wedding to Bilsden's wealthy millwoner, Frederick Hallam...

Three sisters in 1920s struggle to make ends meet and protect their mother from their violent father. Milly works in Southwells jam factory. Elsie dreams of a career on the stage, while little Amy runs wild with her friends. All three of the girls fear the unforgiving temper of their father and their courageous attempts to protect their defenseless mother will have dramatic, disastrous consequences for them all.

One wild night in the 1930s, midwife Patty Peel is called to attend a birth on the opposite side of Liverpool. She pedals off into the storm and delivers a baby girl in a filthy slum dwelling, just as the mother dies. The drunk and violent father tells Patty to get rid of it so she takes the child away, meaning to deliver it to the nearest orphanage. However, Patty spent her entire childhood in an institution, except for the frequent occasions when she ran away, and cannot bear to hand the baby over.

'Best period book I have EVER read! - 5-star reader review' Anna Jacob's riveting new Lancashire saga introduces an unforgettable heroine. Emmy Carter's mother is a prostitute - and her life has made Emmy determined to avoid the same fate. But Emmy is beautiful, so attracts unwanted attention...

The year is 1937 and the country is still reeling from the abdication of King Edward the Eighth the year before. His brother, the Duke of York, has become King George the Sixth and will be crowned in May. The country is on a high. Union Jacks are being dusted off and bunting is being made. Thelma, Jenny and residents of Coronation Close are all a buzz with planning the street parties and celebrations for the great day. But behind every door shameful secrets and sins linger on Coronation Close, just bubbling to expose themselves.

There were plenty around Fellburn who said Maggie Rowan was as plain as a pikestaff, a woman consumed with jealousy at her sister's good fortune in marrying well. But Maggie Rowan, with her dogged determination to succeed, had two raging ambitions beneath a cold and forbidding exterior: to become the mother of a child whom she could love and to escape from the life of the miner's cottage to one of the big houses on Brampton Hill. When she marries the easy-going Chris Taggart, her marriage is planned shrewdly and without sentiment.

From the beloved and bestselling Anna Jacobs' comes a new Lancashire-based saga. 1930, Lancashire: Leah Turner's father has been killed in an accident at the laundry, and since her mother died years ago it falls to her to become sole provider for her little sister. But women's wages are half...

Angela O'Rourke is six when her parents hand her over to an aunt and uncle in a distant village. It's a common practice for large, hard-up families in 1950s Ireland, but for Angela it means that her mother and father don't love her any more. Still, she's well cared for till she's 16, when her uncle starts to take too much of an interest in her. Moving to Liverpool in the early 1960s, she becomes a success in the world of fashion design. The pain of a disastrous love affair sends her home to Ireland just after the death of her aunt. There, among old papers, Angela makes an astonishing discovery....