World War Saga

From the time of William the Conqueror, the Beaumonts have enjoyed the privileges of wealth and position. Their pleasure is to be nothing more than farmers and knights of the realm. Nevertheless, with the dawn of the 20th century, a stray artillery shell slays the current baronet and Thomas Beaumont finds himself the new incumbent, but with no farming knowledge, his first instinct is to run. However, the family motto reads: Where there is a will, there is a way. Sir Thomas finds his way, and by the end of the war, the future looks brighter. Then another deadly crisis rears its head.

October 1940. When VAD nurse Evie narrowly escapes being killed in an air raid during the London Blitz, it propels her to make a life-changing decision to break free of her troubled and unhappy life. She escapes to the Norfolk countryside to start afresh, with a job at the newly opened Great Plumstead Hall hospital, and a wonderful new home at Rookery House. The community of Great Plumstead welcomes evacuees to the village—mothers and children bombed out of their London homes. Sisters Prue and Thea, along with members of The Mother's Day Club, help the new arrivals settle in.

Bristol 194. As the clouds of war grow bleaker both at home and abroad, the Tobacco Girls are determined to do their bit for king and country. To that end Maisie Miles and Bridget Milligan become voluntary ambulance drivers. As well as coping with the frequent air raids, Maisie is kept on her toes with three new junior employees, one of whom is particularly testing. Bridget’s heart becomes torn between family loyalty and Lyndon O’Neill III, the man she loves. Meanwhile Phyllis Harvey has joined the WAAF, opting to serve overseas whilst trying to escape her past.

What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke remains a mystery, but the women who descended from Eleanor Dare have long known that the truth lies in what she left behind: a message carved onto a large stone and the contents of her treasured commonplace book. Brought from England on Eleanor’s fateful voyage to the New World, her book was passed down through the fifteen generations of daughters who followed as they came of age.

May 1941: German bombs drop on Dublin taking Sarah Gillespie’s family and home. Days later, the man she loves leaves Ireland to enlist. With nothing to keep her in Ireland and a burning desire to help the war effort, Sarah seeks refuge with relatives in England. But before long, her father’s dark past threatens to catch up with her. Sarah is asked to prove her loyalty to Britain through a special mission. Her courage could save lives. But it could also come at the cost of her own.

For those looking for the real story behind the fictionalized movie account of the 47 Ronin story, this is the definitive, fascinating account of this unforgettable tale of a band of samurai who defied the Emperor to avenge the disgrace and death of their master, and faced certain death as a result. It led to one of the bloodiest episodes in Japanese history, and in the process, created a new set of heroes in Japan.

1939. After the sudden and tragic loss of her husband, Helen is returning home to her mother’s house in Biggin Hill, Kent - the one place she vowed she’d never go back to again. Alone and not knowing where to turn, Helen finds herself joining the local women’s sewing circle despite being hopeless with a needle and thread. These resourceful women can not only make do and mend clothes, quilts and woolly hats, but their friendship mends something deeper in Helen, too.

Society heiress Evelyn Brooke-Edwards is a skilled interrogator—her beauty making her a non-threat in the eyes of the prisoners. Farm girl Betty Connors may not be able to type as she claimed, but her crack analytical skills soon find her unearthing covert connections. German ex-pat Judith Stern never expected to find herself listening in to German POWs' whispered conversations, but the Nazis took her father from her, so she will do whatever it takes to help the Allies end this war.

Liverpool, 1940. When her childhood sweetheart, Johnny, is killed in action, Maxine Grey loses more than her husband - she loses her best friend. Desperate to make a difference in this awful war, Maxine takes a nursing job at London’s St Thomas’ hospital. She takes comfort in the attentions of a handsome surgeon, but Edwin Blake isn’t all he seems. And as the Blitz descends on the capital, Maxine faces more heartache. When she returns to Liverpool, she harbours a secret.

The war has ended; the men are returning home to their loved ones, but for some, things have changed. Charlotte Hennessey-White's husband, David, is no longer the gentle loving man he once was and Charlotte, so independent during the war, is devastated. Edna Burbage's strong fiancée, Colin, has suffered appalling physical injuries. He won’t hold her to her promise of marriage, but she insists her feelings are unchanged. But is that true? And Polly Chandler's sweetheart, Gavin, who’d she’d planned her whole future around, hasn’t come home at all.

1945. Allied forces liberate Nazi-occupied Brno, Moravia. For Gerta Schnirch, daughter of a Czech mother and a German father aligned with Hitler, it’s not deliverance; it’s a sentence. She has been branded an enemy of the state. Caught in the changing tides of a war that shattered her family - and her innocence - Gerta must obey the official order: she, along with all ethnic Germans, is to be expelled from Czechoslovakia. With nothing but the clothes on her back and an infant daughter, she’s herded among thousands, driven from the only home she’s ever known.

The three sisters of Victory Walk in East London will face heartache and tears on the home front. As rationing, blackouts and bombs start to bite, life will change forever for the three sisters.

In 1940, as the Nazis sweep toward Lithuania, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara defies his own government and secretly issues thousands of visas to Jewish refugees desperate to flee. After the war, Sugihara is dismissed and disappears into obscurity. Three decades later, in Australia, Rachael Margolin, her father and her grandmother live disconnected from one another and haunted by unspoken tragedies. When Rachel announces her engagement to a Greek Orthodox man, it detonates a long-held secret.

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.

"Au bord du gouffre du 20e siècle, quatre icônes mondiales ont incarné de manière exemplaire et jusqu'à aujourd'hui ce que cela signifie de mener une vie véritablement libre". Les années 1933 à 1943 marquent le chapitre le plus noir de la modernité européenne. Face à la catastrophe, quatre femmes philosophes, à l'orée de leur 30 ans, Simone de Beauvoir, Simone Weil, Ayn Rand et Hannah Arendt, développent leurs idées visionnaires : sur la relation entre l'individu et la société, l'homme et la femme, le sexe et le genre, la liberté et le totalitarisme, Dieu et l'homme.

Für den Roman seiner Familie hat der Schauspieler Christian Berkel seinen jüdischen Wurzeln nachgespürt. Er hat Archive besucht, Briefwechsel gelesen und Reisen unternommen. Entstanden ist ein großer und spannungsreicher Familienroman vor dem Hintergrund eines ganzen Jahrhunderts deutscher Geschichte. Er führt über drei Generationen von Ascona, Berlin, Paris, Gurs und Moskau bis nach Buenos Aires. Am Ende steht die Geschichte zweier Liebender, die unterschiedlicher nicht sein könnten und doch ihr Leben lang nicht voneinander lassen.

1942: With the war's outcome hanging in the balance, President Roosevelt sends an unlikely new taskforce on a unique mission. They are librarians and microfilm specialists trained in espionage, working with a special branch of the Office of Strategic Services and deployed to neutral cities throughout Europe. By acquiring and scouring Axis newspapers, books, technical manuals, and periodicals, the librarians can gather information about troop location, weaponry, and military plans.

Ein fesselnder Roman über Mut, Opferbereitschaft und die Kraft der Familie in dunkelsten Zeiten, von SPIEGEL-Bestsellerautorin Ellin Carsta Bernried am Starnberger See, 1942: Die Familien von Falkenbach und Lehmann haben sich daran gewöhnt, dass ihre Telefonate abgehört werden. Doch nun erreicht dieses Gefühl, bespitzelt zu werden, eine neue Dimension. Gibt es jemanden in der Familie, der Informationen an die Nazis weitergibt? Wilhelmine von Falkenbach ist im Zentrum des Widerstands und riskiert alles, um die Wahrheit zu verbreiten.

Russia, 1917. Petrograd is on the eve of revolution. For Countess Sophia Orlova, the city of her childhood—the only home she has ever known—has become her deadly enemy. The mob are ready to get rid of anyone connected to the old regime, including Sophia. When rebels threaten to shoot Sophia and her husband, they are saved by Nikolai, a fervent supporter of the revolution. Determined to help Nikolai’s cause, Sophia sets up a hospital wing in the house, nursing injured victims by his side.

Tuscany, 1943. Stranded in war-ravaged Italy, Beatrice’s dream of an escapist year teaching English is shattered. Granted shelter at the Villa delle Colombe, she seeks refuge in Francesca and Edoardo’s beautiful walled garden, hidden from the outside world, with an elaborate cypress maze at its heart. But Beatrice is not the only one seeking an escape here. Francesca has brought children to the safety of the house, as well as other adults, all of them seeking sanctuary on the estate with its mysterious maze.