**Catch up with Alice, Kate and Naomi in the fourth book in The Wartime Bookshop series - available for pre-order now.** ------------------- January, 1942: Victoria is looking for a life away from the dangers of wartime London for herself and two orphaned children. Her search takes her to Churchwood in Hertfordshire which looks ideal but the village residents are already dealing with their own problems . . . Alice is working hard to get the village bookshop back up and running after the previous premises were destroyed. The new building is in urgent need of repair and a builder has been hired but where is he and where is the money he was paid? Kate is struggling to work out the next steps in her relationship with pilot Leo. Will he expect her to meet his parents? Knowing they are rich and elegant, Kate suspects they want their son’s sweetheart to be the same – not a country bumpkin like her with barely a penny to her name. Meanwhile, Naomi shows kindness to Victoria and her evacuees but is she biting off more than she can chew, especially when she is confronted with a surprising intruder . . . With so much trouble and uncertainty in the village, can Victoria and her little family find the safe haven they crave? Evacuees at the Wartime Bookshop is the fourth novel in the uplifting Wartime Bookshop series, perfect for fans of Donna Douglas and Elaine Everest. ---------------------------- Real readers LOVE The Wartime Bookshop series: 'BRILLIANT' 'I was swept away once again by the magic of Lesley Eames' storytelling prowess.' 'Oh I loved this book... please carry on the good writing' 'Outstandingly fabulous, warm and inviting' 'I was only two pages in when I knew this would be a 5 star read... I honestly can't put my excitement into words at the thought of reading the next one' 'Sitting down & opening the book is like rejoining your family. Such a good read.'

A moving and revealing insight into the real experiences of children evacuated during WWII and the families they left behind On 1 September 1939 Operation Pied Piper began to place the children of Britain's industrial cities beyond the reach of the Luftwaffe. 1.5 million children, pregnant women and schoolteachers were evacuated in 3 days. A further 2 million children were evacuated privately; the largest mass evacuation of children in British history. Some children went abroad, others were sent to institutions, but the majority were billeted with foster families. Some were away for weeks or months, others for years. Homecoming was not always easy and a few described it as more difficult than going away in the first place. In When the Children Came Home Julie Summers tells us what happened when these children returned to their families. She looks at the different waves of British evacuation during WWII and explores how they coped both in the immediate aftermath of the war, and in later life. For some it was a wonderful experience that enriched their whole lives, for others it cast a long shadow, for a few it changed things for ever. Using interviews, written accounts and memoirs, When the Children Came Home weaves together a collection of personal stories to create a warm and compelling portrait of wartime Britain from the children's perspective.

Alice, Kate and Naomi want to keep the magic of Christmas alive in their village of Churchwood but a thief in the area and a new family that shuns the local community are only the first of the problems they face. Naomi is fighting to free herself from Alexander - the man who married her for her money, then kept a secret family behind her back. But will she be able to achieve the independence she craves? Alice's dreams came true when she married sweetheart Daniel. Now he has returned to the fighting, but Alice is delighted to discover that she's carrying his child. Will the family make it through the war unscathed? While Kate's life on Brimbles Farm has never been easy, she now has help from land girls Pearl and Ruby. But what will it mean for them all when Kate's brother returns from the war with terrible injuries? And why has pilot Leo, the man she loves, stopped writing? As ever, the Wartime Bookshop is a source of community and comfort. But disaster is about to strike... Christmas at the Wartime Bookshop is the third novel in the uplifting Wartime Bookshop series, perfect for fans of Donna Douglas and Elaine Everest. **The fourth novel, Evacuees at the Wartime Bookshop, is available to pre-order now!** ---------------------------- Real readers are LOVING The Wartime Bookshop series: 'BRILLIANT' 'Oh I loved this book... please carry on the good writing' 'Wow what a brilliant start to a new series' 'Outstandingly fabulous, warm and inviting... so glad there is going to be a follow-on' 'I was only two pages in when I knew this would be a 5 star read... I honestly can't put my excitement into words at the thought of reading the next one!'

The first in a brand-new nostalgic and heart-warming WWII series, perfect for fans of Donna Douglas and Elaine Everest. Alice is nursing an injured hand and a broken heart when she moves to the village of Churchwood at the start of WWII. She is desperate to be independent but worries that her injuries will make that impossible. Kate lives with her family on Brimbles Farm, where her father and brothers treat her no better than a servant. With no mother or sisters, and shunned by the locals, Kate longs for a friend of her own. Naomi is looked up to for owning the best house in the village. But privately, she carries the hurts of childlessness, a husband who has little time for her and some deep-rooted insecurities. With war raging overseas, and difficulties to overcome at home, friendship is needed now more than ever. Can the war effort and a shared love of books bring these women - and the community of Churchwood - together? **The fourth novel, Evacuees at the Wartime Bookshop, is available to pre-order now!** ------------------------------- **Real readers are LOVING The Wartime Bookshop** 'BRILLIANT' 'Oh I loved this book... please carry on the good writing' 'Wow what a brilliant start to a new series' 'Outstandingly fabulous, warm and inviting... so glad there is going to be a follow-on' 'I was only two pages in when I knew this would be a 5 star read... I honestly can't put my excitement into words at the thought of reading the next one'

An unputdownable saga about love and family, guaranteed to warm your heart this winter... London, 1910. Lily is ten years old when she realises her grandmother, a washerwoman in the backstreets of London's Bermondsey, is seriously ill. She's determined to do what can she can to help and keep her grandmother's illness a secret – even from her beloved twin, Artie. But Gran isn't getting any better, and there's only so much Lily can do... When tragedy strikes and the twins are faced with the prospect of a workhouse or an orphanage, a benefactor offers to take Artie in and educate him. All Artie's needs will be taken care of – but the gentleman has no use for a girl. The twins have lost everything they knew and loved, but they never thought they'd lose each other. As the orphan twins grow up and take different paths, their new lives are beyond anything they could have imagined. Will they ever find a way to be together again? Set against the backdrop of the First World War, The Orphan Twins is the heart-wrenching new saga from Lesley Eames, bestselling author of The Brighton Guest House Girls and two-time RNA Romantic Saga award nominee.

In this engaging autobiographical account, veteran journalist and broadcaster Bob Trevor recalls his childhood experiences in war-torn London during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz and as an evacuee, first in rural Southern England and later in Liverpool. The result is as powerful an evocation of civilian life in wartime Britain as you are ever likely to read. This is a compelling and at times deeply moving portrayal of family life, childhood, friendship and collective fortitude in the face of adversity. Just five years old when war is declared in 1939, Bob and his gang of childhood friends are soon watching in awe as the dogfights of Battle of Britain take place in the skies above their local streets in suburban Thornton Heath, although their initial excitement gives way to trepidation as the nightly bombing raids of the Blitz begin. With London under siege, Bob, his mother and baby sister are evacuated to Pangbourne in rural Berkshire, where for the next two years they will share a single room in a dilapidated old Rectory, struggling to survive on their meagre wartime rations. To add to his hardships, Bob is sent to the local village school, where he and a few fellow evacuees face relentless bullying by local children who resent intruders on their turf. The daily playground battles of this plucky band of uprooted city kids mirrors the hostilities taking place in the wider world, where Allied forces face a similarly intractable enemy. Just as all seems lost, a unit of the Royal Canadian Engineers is stationed nearby and Bob is befriended by a trio of native Canadian soldiers. Far from home and victims of prejudice themselves, these 'Red Indian' servicemen empathise with the displaced city kids and tutor them in the art of self-defence. It is a valuable education that will help our young hero overcome the challenges that lie in store for him in Liverpool and back home in London before VE Day finally heralds a longed-for return to normal life.

A saga of immense charm and warmth, with three characters you won't forget. Thea, Anna and Daisy forge an unbreakable friendship through adversity. Thea's loathsome stepbrother is trying to trick her out of her inheritance of her parents' beautiful house in the seaside town of Brighton by means of a Will which Thea believes to be forged. He gives her three months in which to leave. Afterwards she will face destitution. Anna is pregnant and grieving, her explorer fiancé lost at sea. Her violent father drives her from the family home in the back streets of London's Bermondsey and her fiancé's upper-class relatives cruelly reject her. Daisy is in search of independence, running from a man she doesn't want to marry. Together the three girls set up Thea's home as a guest house and embark on a mission to outwit her stepbrother by proving his fraud. In a race against time, nothing will turn out to be quite as it seems.

1939, Cambridge. The opening weeks of the Second World War, and the first blackout - The Great Darkness - covers southern England, enveloping the city. Detective Inspector Eden Brooke, a wounded hero of the Great War, takes his nightly dip in the cool waters of the Cam. The night is full of alarms, but in this Phoney War, the enemy never comes. But daylight reveals a corpse on the riverside, the body torn apart by some unspeakable force. Brooke investigates, calling on the expertise and inspiration of a faithful group of fellow 'nighthawks' across the city, all condemned, like him, to a life lived away from the light. Within hours The Great Darkness has claimed a second victim. War, it seems, has many victims. But what links these crimes of the night?

"Blade-sharp, whip-smart, and genuinely original — a thriller to refresh your faith in the genre, your belief that a story can still outpace and outsmart you."— A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in The Window "Clever and surprising...The superb character-driven plot delivers an astonishing, believable jolt."—Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Deserves two big thumbs up. Readers will be gripped by this astonishing story in which one gasp-inducing twist follows on the heels of another. A unique page-turner that just begs to be turned into a movie." —Booklist (starred review) A smart, witty, crackling novel of psychological suspense in which a girl from a hardscrabble small town meets a gorgeous Instagram influencer from the big city, with a murderous twist that will shock even the most savvy reader. On a beautiful October morning in rural Maine, a homicide investigator from the state police pulls into the hard-luck town of Copper Falls. The local junkyard is burning, and the town pariah Lizzie Oullette is dead—with her husband, Dwayne, nowhere to be found. As scandal ripples through the community, Detective Ian Bird’s inquiries unexpectedly lead him away from small-town Maine to a swank city townhouse several hours south. Adrienne Richards, blonde and fabulous social media influencer and wife of a disgraced billionaire, had been renting Lizzie’s tiny lake house as a country getaway…even though Copper Falls is anything but a resort town. As Adrienne’s connection to the case becomes clear, so too does her connection to Lizzie, who narrates their story from beyond the grave. Each woman is desperately lonely in her own way, and they navigate a relationship that cuts across class boundaries: transactional, complicated, and, finally, deadly. A Gone Girl for the gig economy, this is a story of privilege, identity, and cunning, as two devious women from opposite worlds discover the dangers of coveting someone else’s life. "Both amusingly satirical and darkly bloody."—The Washington Post

BRISTOL 1943 and life for the Tobacco Girls isn’t getting any easier... Bridget Milligan has donned a uniform and joined the nursing services where she becomes intrigued with the miracles of modern medicine. She’s also torn between family loyalty, her new career and Lyndon O’Neill, the love of her life. Is it too impossible to hope that everything will come out right in the end? Phyllis Harvey is still serving in Malta where she sees the casualties of war first hand. Finally it seems like Phyllis is blessed with true in love, but fate can sometimes be a rocky road and nothing is that certain. Maisie Miles is left holding the home front at the tobacco factory but with the sudden death of her grandmother finds herself once more alone in the world. However, thanks to a substantial inheritance, she is able to extend a helping hand to a friend in desperate need. There are tears and laughter, goodbyes and new arrivals along with the hope that new beginnings are not far over the horizon. Praise for Lizzie Lane: 'A gripping saga and a storyline that will keep you hooked' Rosie Goodwin 'The Tobacco Girls is another heartwarming tale of love and friendship and a must-read for all saga fans.' Jean Fullerton 'Lizzie Lane opens the door to a past of factory girls, redolent with life-affirming friendship, drama, and choices that are as relevant today as they were then.' Catrin Collier 'If you want an exciting, authentic historical saga then look no further than Lizzie Lane.' Fenella J Miller