Historical Family Saga

With her in-laws in desperate need of help, Marnie is forced to return to Suffolk, leaving her precious daughter Annie behind in Cornwall. But Lowestoft is a very different town to the one she left. Ravaged by war, and a mere twenty miles from enemy lines, the seaside town she once loved now resembles a military base, and is firmly in Hitler’s line of fire. As she tries to rebuild her life amidst the rubble and horror of war, Marnie struggles to free herself from the grief and shame of past mistakes.

Sometimes a family's deepest silences hide the most important secrets. For Mina, a London-based travel writer, the enigmatic silence surrounding her aunt Carmela has become a personal obsession. Carmela disappeared from her Italian hometown long ago and is mentioned only in fragments and whispers. Mina has resisted prying, respectful of her family's Sardinian reserve. But now, with her mother battling cancer, it's time to learn the truth.

In the late 1800s, the residents of a small village in coastal Italy migrated to the promised land of America. They eventually settled in Roseto, Pennsylvania, where they re-created every detail of their former lives, including the centerpiece of Roseto’s colorful old-world tradition: the annual pageant for Our Lady of Mount Caramel—or “the Big Time,” as it’s called by the young women competing to be its Queen.

Sicily, 1943. Three American women, all nurses in the Medical Air Evacuation Transport Squadron, are determined to do all they can for their country. Vita is fun-loving, Dot shy and sweet-natured, and Evelyn practical and determined, but for all their differences, a life of military service pulls the three together as firm friends. When they’re selected for a daring mission, the women are proud to play their part. But disaster strikes when their plane crash-lands behind enemy lines in occupied Albania. finally find their way home?

It is the early 1920s, and the Maitland family are still coming to terms with the aftermath of the Great War. After her brave work as an ambulance driver and nurse close to the Front, Pips is restless and without purpose. Determined to enjoy life after the years of misery, and to help her forget a broken love affair, she seeks excitement in the London parties and balls of the Roaring '20s. No family or community escaped the ravages of this war, and Pips knows her own has its share of troubles.

Best friends Sarah, Maisie and Freda are brought together by their jobs at Woolworths. With their loved ones away on the front line, their bonds of friendship strengthen each day. Betty Billington is the manager at Woolworths and a rock for the girls, having given up on love...until a mysterious stranger turns up one day - could he reignite a spark in Betty?

July, 1914: In their sunlit Hampshire workshop, Alice Dalton mixes paints for the stained-glass artwork she and Edmund are working on, pausing only to joyfully cradle the soft swell of her stomach. But the looming war threatens her hard-won happiness. A knock at the door announces the arrival of Victor, her estranged brother, returning after six long years in America. But her elation at being reunited is short-lived as she realizes he still hasn’t forgiven her for her part in the heartbreak that sent him abroad.

Andrew Gross delivers a stirring story of a Jewish family brought together in the dawn of the women's garment business and torn apart by the birth of organized crime in New York City in the 1930s. Morris, Sol, and Harry Rabishevsky grew up poor and rough in a tiny flat on the Lower East Side, until the death of their father thrust them into having to fend for themselves. Morris, the youngest, dropped out of school at 12 and apprenticed himself to a garment cutter in a clothing factory; Sol headed to accounting school; but Harry, scarred by a family tragedy, fell in with a gang of thugs as a teenager.

Bristol 1938. A shadowy presence overshadows Coronation Close, watching and waiting. Jenny Crawford is the first to notice the stranger and wonders why his attention is fixed on Thelma Dawson’s house. When challenged he makes a hasty retreat. Meanwhile Thelma is having trouble with her precocious daughter Mary who is about to leave school and start work. Mary considers herself an adult but to Thelma she’s still a little girl; an attitude resented by her daughter.

It is 1937, and Alice, Edith and Marg continue to face hardships every day, growing up on one of the poorest streets in Blackpool. Penniless, their friendship has helped them survive this far, but it'll take more than that to see them through the dark days ahead. Alice is coping with a violent father. Marg is left reeling after a dark secret about her birth comes to light and threatens to destroy the life she knows, and Edith is fighting to protect her alcoholic mother from the shame of their neighbours and keep her brother on the straight and narrow.

Bristol 1941. Having left her abusive husband for very good reasons, Mary Anne Randall finds herself judged harshly by her friends and neighbours, after courageously risking everything for a second chance at happiness with Michael. With Michael away fighting, Mary Anne is less concerned by her tarnished reputation and focusses on keeping her beloved children safe. But with the bombs beginning to fall on Bristol, danger is all too close to home.

Twenty-three-year-old Katy Speed is fascinated by the house across the street. The woman who lives there, Gloria, is the most glamorous neighbour on the avenue, owning a fashionable dress shop in Bexhill-on-Sea. But who is the woman who arrives in the black car most Saturdays while Gloria is at work? Sometimes she brings women to the house, other times they have children. Hilda, Katy's mother, disapproves of Gloria. She wonders if these mysterious visitors have just been released from prison. Is Gloria secretly bringing criminals, or worse, into the heart of the community?

In mid 17th-century England, the nation was in upheaval. In the Dorset countryside, one sunlit afternoon, a young girl, illicitly bathing in a stream, first fell in love with a passing stranger. Her parents called her Dorcas, but he called her Campion and that's what she longed to be, then and forever. She had one gift left for her by her unknown father - a pendant made of gold, banded by tiny glowing stones and at its base was a seal engraved with an axe and the words: St Matthew.

Singapore in the 1860s is exotic and yet terrifying for a penniless Englishwoman, alone and vulnerable after her mother's death. Too pretty to obtain a governess' job, Isabella Saunders accepts an offer from Singapore merchant Mr Lee to teach him English and live with his family. Two years later Bram Deagan arrives in Singapore, determined to make his fortune as a trader. Mr Lee sees a way to expand his business connections and persuades Isabella to marry Bram. Bravely, she sets sail for a new land and life.

Since her return home to Berlin, Goldie Schatzman has reconnected with her childhood friend, Leni, a free spirit who has swept Goldie into the Weimar lifestyle that is overflowing with artists and writers, but also with debauchery. Goldie had spent the last nineteen years living a dull life with a spiritless husband. And now she has been set free. As Goldie's daughter, Alma, is coming of marriageable age, her grandparents are determined to find her a suitable match. Will Goldie's life of depravity hurt Alma's chances to find a Jewish husband?

It’s autumn 1940 and the Blitz has cast its shadow over London. Everyone is doing their bit to help, including the three Harrison sisters of the East End’s Victory Walk. Nurse Rose is snowed under in the hospital tending to victims of the bombings. Her sister Clover is on active duty on the south coast, while the baby of the family, Daisy, is growing up quickly working on the London Underground, now that thousands of people are taking shelter down below. Even in wartime, the sisters find time for a wedding, but the bride is keeping a secret, which threatens to come to light.

In Berlin, Esther and Ted Birnbaum are faced with leaving everything and everyone they love behind in an effort to survive Hitler's vicious attack on the Jews of Germany. They have no one to turn to for help except their oldest employee, Hans Hubermann. But Hans's son, Erwin, is showing great promise in the Hitler Youth, and Luisa, a longtime enemy of the Birnbaums', has taken notice of Erwin's advancements in the organization. Does she realize Erwin is Hans's son, and that Hans is connected to the Birnbaums? And if she does, what will the ramifications of this be?

In 1965 Manhattan, patrons flock to Masha’s to savor its brisket bourguignon and impeccable service and to admire its dashing owner and head chef Peter Rashkin, the most eligible bachelor in town. But Peter does not care for the parade of eligible women who come to the restaurant hoping to catch his eye. Running Masha’s consumes him, as does his terrible guilt over surviving the horrors of the Nazi death camp while his wife, Masha - the restaurant’s namesake - and two young daughters perished. Then exquisitely beautiful June Bouquet, an up-and-coming young model, appears at the restaurant, piercing Peter’s guard.

It is 1860 in Bilsden, the Lancashire mill town, and Frederick Hallam is dying. But first he makes secret plans to smooth the future path for his beloved wife, Annie. Her sister, Joanie, is fed up with everything until a dashing new admirer crosses her path. But a spurned suitor is determined that Joanie will be his, whatever the cost. And he is not the only one who wants to harm the Gibson family. Meanwhile the Civil War in America cuts off cotton supplies so that times are hard in Bilsden and unemployment is rife.

For more than two centuries, Winterbourne Hall has stood atop a bluff overseeing the English countryside of Cornwall and the sea beyond. In 1947, Londoner Alice Miller accepts a post as governess at Winterbourne, looking after Captain Jonathan de Grey’s twin children. Falling under the de Greys’ spell, Alice believes the family will heal her own past sorrows. But then, the twins’ adoration becomes deceitful and taunting. Their father, ever distant, turns spiteful and cruel. The manor itself seems to lash out. Alice finds her surroundings subtly altered, her air slightly chilled.