Showing results by author "Lynette Rees" in All Categories

A heartwarming saga from the best-selling author of The Workhouse Waif. Sixteen-year-old Lottie Perkins has an important decision to make.... Conditions at the match factory she works at are dire. The girls get treated badly by the management, and there is a severe risk to their health. But then a young journalist, Annie Besant, begins asking questions. Will Lottie and the other girls welcome her help, even when it could cost them their jobs - and their livelihoods...? 

Orphaned at the age of 10, Archie Ledbetter is forced to live with his uncle in his very grand house. Uncle Walter seems emotionless, exhibiting little feeling towards the young lad. If it wasn't for some of the staff at Huntington Hall, Archie's life would be a complete misery. There's a dark secret that Cook hints at as to why Archie's mother left her lavish lifestyle behind and ended up settling in the East End of London, scraping a living selling cakes and confectionery from the back of a barrow in the marketplace. Archie's never known his father and wonders who he is.

Enid Hardcastle has always had a hard life, but when her family can’t make ends meet and are moved to the workhouse, it feels like things can’t get any worse. But luckily for Enid, her friendship with local boy Jimmy gives her the strength. Also from the cold, hard streets of Merthyr, Jimmy has made his name as an entrepreneur, repairing boots and hand-delivering them to the fine people of the town. Enid has seen for herself that you can make a better life for yourself, so with Jimmy’s help, she sets about trying to save her family. But there are even darker places than the workhouse...

1884 - When Betsan Morgan’s mother succumbs to a devastating illness, she doesn't think her life could get much worse. But then her father moves in his new beau, an unserious flitty woman and coincidentally also the bargirl in the pub he works in, and she soon learns her house is no longer a home. All she can do is sit in the attic and stare at the portrait of her mother. Her new stepmother, Elinor, couldn’t even let them have the grace of keeping it in the hallway.

A baby girl, just a few months old, is discovered wrapped up in a shawl on a wooden bench at Itchy Park, Spitalfields. It's a frosty December evening just before the Christmas of 1861. The infant is rescued by a lady called Bessie Harper. Bessie names the young child, Lucy, and in later years, deceives the child by telling her that her mother died years ago. Bessie has no idea who the child’s mother really is but clutched tightly in the baby's hand, she discovers a silver locket which has the name "Adella" inscribed on it and a lock of hair inside.

A heartwarming saga from the best-selling author of The Workhouse Waif. Eighteen-year-old seamstress Kathryn Flynn lives in Whitechapel, London, struggling to support her widowed mother and younger siblings. But when her work starts drying up and her mother falls ill, she is forced to consider desperate measures.... Then she meets 'Squire', an older city gentleman, who falls instantly in love with her and offers to take her under his wing. 'Squire' could give Kathryn the life she's always wanted...but is there something darker lurking beneath his kindness? 

Will this little orphan girl find her happy ending? After the death of her father in a mining accident, Megan and her family had no choice but to move to the local workhouse. Separated from her mother and five siblings, young Megan must learn how to stand on her own two feet. But it's on one of the days she's sent out on errands that her fate changes. She meets a young boy who's stealing apples from the local market, as well as a friendly well-to-do lady with the most melodious voice she's ever heard. With her newfound friends, can she find a new life for herself?

For years Seren James has yearned for a child of her own. Married to a man who has little care for her, she longs for something to fill the emptiness within - and fears that she is almost out of time. When Seren meets a woman who says she can help, she thinks her dreams have come true. But the locals suspect Anwen of witchcraft, and any association with her may taint Seren too.  

When 12-year-old Ada Cooper's elder sister, Connie, goes mysteriously missing, Ada and her younger brother, Sam, are forced to fend for themselves. Connie's job at the match factory was the only thing keeping the family together, and when the rent man, Mr Winterbourne, threatens them with internment at the workhouse for non-payment, Ada and Sam must flee. A costermongering family come to their aid by providing Ada with a barrow of her own to sell fruit and veg by day and flowers outside the theatres by night.