Quercus The Forces' Sweethearts Archer Rosie

The first in a heartwarming saga series set during the Second World War. Perfect for fans of Pam Howes and Elaine Everest • 1942 • Working in the greengrocers and playing the piano in the pub a couple of nights a week isn't fulfilling nineteen-year-old Trixie Smith's idea of helping Britain win the war. One day she sees a poster advertising the Women's Timber Corps and decides to sign up - soon she is on her way to Scotland for four weeks of training to become a Lumberjill • On her journey north she meets Cy, an American soldier on leave. Their attraction is instant and they both feel that fate has brought them together. Although their time with one another is brief, they promise that they'll be together as soon as the war is over • But training to become a Lumberjill is hard; working in all weathers, felling trees and hauling timber is dangerous and exhausting

A traditional, WW2-set saga following a group of women working in an armaments factory on the Hampshire coast • It's 1944, after D-Day. Doodlebugs are the latest threat to war-battered southern England • Local crook Samuel Golden is still finding ways to exploit people's hardship for his own gain. Heroine Em, who we first met in THE MUNITIONS GIRLS, finds herself caught up in one such scheme while having to deal with her daughter's unexpected pregnancy • Female friendship; wartime drama; mothers and daughters; and finding a good man in the end - it's all there in this sparkling new saga from Rosie Archer

An enthralling, eventful WW2 saga from the popular writer of the Daisy Lane novels • An enthralling, eventful WW2 saga from the popular writer of the Daisy Lane novels - perfect for fans of Daisy Styles • 1943, Gosport, Hampshire. Pixie Saunders is 19 and employed in the local armaments factory. Not for the first time, her mother has run off with a dodgy-looking bloke, leaving Pixie to pay the rent and fend for herself. Pixie, along with her best friend Rita, Em, the factory overseer, and the rest of the girls are making the most of the war while trying to stay alive. The work is dangerous and the hours long, but in the evenings they take off their overalls and go to the pub or, better still, go dancing. Pixie meets American serviceman Cal and falls in love

A new powerful and heartwarming saga featuring the same characters as The Munitions Girls • In love and war, who can you trust? • 1944, Hampshire • Her face still bearing the scars from the explosion at the factory, Rita Brown is nonetheless back on her feet. She's caught the eye of local wide boy Blackie Bristow, who's sweeping her around the country in a life of shady glamour • But there's a war on, and life is not all fun and games. Some of the local men are taking advantage of the topsy-turvy world to break more than just hearts, and standing up to them comes with its own costs • Rita keeps calm and carries on with a little help from her friends at the factory. But then she discovers someone there has been leaking secrets to the Germans. With D-Day on the horizon, Rita must work out who she can rely on - and fast

The heartwarming final chapter in the Bluebird Girls series. As war finally draws to a close and the lights come back on across Europe, what will victory and peacetime bring for the south coast's favourite singing trio? • In their rise to fame over the course of the war, Bea Herron, Ivy Sparrow and Rainey Bird have faced down bombs and looked tragedy in the eye. They have also found love, created their own families and had careers that they never thought possible • With peace finally on the horizon, what will the new world hold for them?

The Angelotti family reels when the lost son, given up for adoption in the war, traces his birth family and returns to the fold, with devastating consequences • As poverty-stricken newlyweds, Laura and Giovanni Angelotti were forced to put their first child - a boy - up for adoption. They have had other children since, and their first little Italian cafe has become a restaurant empire, but Laura is still haunted by thoughts of the baby she lost • Tom is a successful businessman enjoying the fast-paced City lifestyle - until his best friend and business partner is killed in the 9/11 attacks and his world turns upside down. Searching for meaning in his life, he decides to track down his birth family: the Angelottis • But Laura has been keeping an explosive secret about Tom's parentage that means his reappearance in her life is bittersweet

The McKenzies are your average complicated family: knotted together by in-jokes, arguments and a few closely-guarded secrets. Thirty-something sisters Leni and Alice became inseparable following the divorce of their parents, Belinda and Tony, with younger brother Will always trying to keep up. They're not perfect, but they love each other - most of the time, anyway • But then one ordinary summer day, an accident changes the family forever. Questions arise, guilt surfaces and secrets begin to emerge. Scattered by grief and seeking comfort in the unlikeliest of places, can the McKenzies find their way back to each other? • Set over the course of one life-changing year, The Best Days of Our Lives is a warm, big-hearted and poignant story, full of hope, heartache and love

The first book in the heart-stopping The Darkest Minds trilogy, also now a major movie, from the bestselling author of Lore • Ruby is sixteen. She is dangerous. And she is alive. For now • A mysterious disease has killed most of America’s children. Ruby might have survived, but she and the others have emerged with something far worse than a virus: frightening abilities they cannot control. Pressured by the government, Ruby’s parents sent her to Thurmond, a brutal state ‘rehabilitation camp’, where she has learned to fear and suppress her new power. But what if mastering it is a whole generation’s only chance for survival?

The Kingdom of France, 1173. A remarkable queen rallies her sons against a tyrannical king - their father • It is with a soft voice, full of menace, that our mother commands us to overthrow our father • Richard Lionheart tells the story of his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. In 1173, she and three of her sons instigate a rebellion to overthrow the English king, her husband Henry Plantagenet. What prompts this revolt? How does a great queen persuade her children to rise up against their father? And how does a son cope with this crushing conflict of loyalties? • Replete with poetry and cruelty, this story takes us to the heart of the relationship between a mother and her favourite son - two individuals sustained by literature, unspoken love, honour and terrible violence

The loss of her mother has left Kali McKenzie with too many unanswered questions. But while clearing out Elena's art studio, she finds a drawer packed with postcard each bearing an identical one-line message from a Canadian gallery owner called Susannah Gillespie: thinking of you. Who is this woman and what does she know about Elena's hidden past? • Desperate to find out, Kali travels with her toddler, Finn, to Susannah's isolated home on a remote British Columbian island, a place of killer whales and storms. But as bad weather closes in, Kali quickly realises she has made a big mistake. The enigmatic Susannah refuses to talk about the past, and as Kali struggles to piece together what happened back in the 1970s, Susannah's behaviour grows more and more erratic

A World War 2 saga to warm the heart. Three women become friends when working in their local picture house. When life is so tough for everyone, a trip to the pictures is the perfect way to escape, to dream of romance and hope for the good things peace will bring • It is 1943 on England's war-weary south coast where the conflict seems never-ending. After the heartache of the previous year, Connie Baxter now appears to have everything a girl could want. There is Ace, a man who loves her. She enjoys an enviable lifestyle despite the deprivations of war. She has friends and a job she adores as an usherette at the Criterion cinema. But appearances can be deceptive and Connie is struggling in more ways than one • Then, to compound Connie's problem, her nemesis, Cousin Marlene, returns home

A warm and heartfelt WW2 saga of hope, love, and female friendship and how women pull together through good times and bad. Perfect for fans of Dilly Court and Nadine Dorries • In 1940s Hampshire the war is settling into its stride bringing dark days for many • Connie Baxter has just moved in with her Aunt Gertie after the death of her mother. Gertie works as a cleaner at the Criterion Picture House in Gosport and she helps Connie to get a job there as an usherette. For Connie, it's the perfect place to work because she adores the movies with their glamorous, romantic stars • The only fly in the ointment is the Criterion's creepy manager with his wandering hands. But soon Connie is firm friends with Queenie, who sells ice creams and soon tells her how to warn him off