Lilian Harry

A novel of love, separation, infidelity and indecision set in the 1950s and 1960sClare and Kathy are young, inexperienced and very much in love with their men. But being 'married to the Navy' is harder than either of them imagined. With a husband at sea and a new baby to consider, Clare finds herself coping with motherhood alone, and when Martyn returns he is unsure how to deal with his wife's new-found independence. As for Kathy, newly engaged to Brian, temptations come her way which are impossible to ignore. Even when all their lives seem to be settling into some sort of routine, it seems that their troubles are only just beginning...

The beginning of the beloved village series from Sunday Times bestselling author Lilian Harry.When Stella Simmons comes to the Devonshire village of Burracombe to start her teaching career, she is alone in the world. Orphaned as child and brought up in a children's home, she was separated from her sister Muriel and has never been able to trace her. Stella is soon caught up in the life of the village, and especially in the plans for celebrating the Festival of Britain. As headmistress Miss Kemp and vicar Basil Harvey try to keep the peace between villagers, who all have their own ideas for the proposed pageant and fair, Stella tries, with the help of artist Luke Ferris, to find her sister. But Luke has his own troubles...THE BELLS OF BURRACOMBE begins the story of life in a Devonshire village in the 1950s and shows us a picture of Britain coming to terms with the aftermath of the Second World War and entering a new decade.

Lilian Harry's engrossing wartime saga about the heroes and heroines of Dunkirk.During just nine days in the early summer of 1940, nearly eight hundred 'little ships', from lifeboats and passenger steamers to small private yachts and dinghies, set off across the English Channel to rescue almost half a million men trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk. Among them were three very different craft - a London fireboat from the docklands of the East End, manned by skipper Olly Mears and his crew; a small pleasure steamer from the River Dart in Devon, commanded by twenty-one-year-old Robby Endacott, an Able Seaman in the Royal Navy who grew up on the banks of the Dart; and a small motor yacht owned by Portsmouth solicitor Hubert Stainbank and crewed by his sons, Charles and Toby.As each boat ferries exhausted men from the beaches to the waiting ships, under incessant fire from enemy aircraft and in a sea awash with debris and bodies, the men are unknowingly united by a powerful driving force - the urgent need to find one man, brother or son, who matters more to them than anyone else. Each of these missing men has a family, a wife or a sweetheart at home who is anxiously waiting for news...One sweetheart in particular is determined to play her own part in the rescue.

A heart-rending wartime saga, bringing the reality of the end of war to the people of April Grove and Bridge End.Ruth, Lizzie and Heather each have their own reasons for greeting the end of the war with mixed feelings. For Ruth, it means she must face the possibility of losing Sammy, the evacuee boy she has come to love as her own - not to mention the uncertain relationship she has with his father, Dan. For Heather, who has been enjoying working the farm since her husband Ian went away, there is the difficult process of adjusting to a man who believes that his wife's place will now be in the kitchen. And Lizzie is confronted by the truth about her own strength of will in enduring years of loneliness - particularly as her friendship with the American airman, Floyd, deepens.With the coming of peace, life changes more than anyone had expected as the 'love and laughter' that had been promised turn to bewilderment, anger and disappointment. Yet although nothing is quite as they had hoped it would be, they are able to move into a future without war, and learn to live with peace.

An absorbing Sunday Times bestselling wartime saga from this much-loved author.Kate, Sally, Maxine and Elsie work at the naval armament depot on the shores of Portsmouth harbour. The hours are long and the work difficult and dangerous, but even in the dark days of the Second World War they still find time to enjoy themselves, at the ENSA concerts and hops in the local drill hall. However, beneath the careless laughter each girl nurses a secret. Kate is terrified that she carries a jinx, while Maxine has discovered a family secret which turns her bitterly against both her parents. Elsie is still grieving the loss of her son Graham, killed in the Blitz. And spirited young Sally has lied about her age in order to get her job.Each faces a dilemma that will be resolved only after D-Day in June 1944. What happens then brings each woman face to face with her own strengths and failings and, ultimately, her own destiny.

Another wonderful wartime saga from this much-loved author.Portsmouth, January 1941. When the Luftwaffe unleashes its full fury on the city in the first of three major blitzes, the Taylor family are bombed out. Judy finds her job relocated from the gutted Guildhall to a hotel in Southsea, and home is now a small terraced house in April Grove, with one fewer bedroom and no bathroom or inside lavatory. And then there is the news she has been dreading: her sailor fiancé has been killed. Judy and her young, recently widowed aunt Polly decide to turn their grief to good account and join the WVS, running canteens, accompanying evacuee children and helping the families of servicemen, often in the face of danger from air raids, flying bombs and V2 rockets. Gradually, Judy and Polly find their own grief healing as they take part not only in their war work but in the life of April Grove, and although both are at first convinced they will never know love again, they both find it in the least likely manner.

A delightfully warm novel about the rebuilding of lives in Plymouth and Portsmouth after the Second World War.The War is over at last and in Plymouth and Portsmouth, two of Britain's greatest seaports, and the task of rebuilding must begin. But it is not only streets, businesses and homes that have been laid waste. Lives, too, have been devastated. Marriages have been disrupted, family life shattered, and now the inhabitants must find their own way back to normality - if they can remember what that is.Lucy Pengelly is just one woman whose life has been torn apart by the war. What will happen when her husband returns from the POW camp in the Far East? And what of the growing friendship between Lucy and her friend David, who played such an important part in their lives during the Blitz?

'A perfect nostalgia hit!' YOURSSet in a Lyon's Corner House in London, this is the second novel in the series set against the backdrop of the Second World War which began with CORNER HOUSE GIRLS.

The first in the Corner House series, set in a Lyons Corner House in London on the brink of the Second World War.When cousins Jo and Phyl decide to become Lyons Corner House waitresses, or 'Nippies', as they are known for their speedy service, they have no idea how their lives are about to change. They are whisked from family life in Woolwich to digs in London; they are transported from a factory and a grocer's shop to the wonderful dining rooms of Lyons, Marble Arch, and they swap their old overalls for the smart uniforms of the Corner House girls. Jo and Phyl settle in and make friends with both waitresses and customers. There are boyfriends, lovers and fiancés, friendship and romance, but as the Second World War becomes increasingly imminent, the future of these men and women seems more and more uncertain.