Showing results by author "Freda Lightfoot" in All Categories

After her mother's suicide, Abbie Myers returns home to the Lake District with her young child - and no wedding ring. Estranged from her turbulent family for many years, Abbie is heartbroken when she hears that they blame her for this tragedy. Determined to uncover her mother's past, Abbie approaches her beloved grandmother, Millie, in search of answers. The old woman reveals the story of how she travelled to Russia in 1911 as a young governess and became caught up in the revolution.

After giving birth to her daughter, Kate O'Connor finds herself back in Poor House Lane with some momentous decisions to make. Faced with the opportunity to move out of the slums, she invests her unexpected fortune in a new shoe factory to challenge Eliot Tyson's monopoly over the workforce, regardless of whether or not he is the father of her children...

Isabella Ashton has always been her father’s favourite, but when she gets involved with the new Birth Control Movement, he is scandalised. A decade has elapsed since the end of the Great War and running a family planning clinic in Salford is challenging but rewarding work. Bella is grateful for the help of Violet Howarth, a generous-hearted woman who takes her in off the street. Before long, a friendship with Violet’s son, Dan, blossoms into the beginnings of love.

Lissa Turner has everything a girl could wish for. She’s beautiful, intelligent and has a wonderful family in the picturesque Lake District. But despite her good fortune, Lissa is unhappy. Her mother abandoned her as a baby, and ever since, she’s been wracked with insecurity, fearing everyone else will leave her too. As soon as she is old enough, she takes up a job in Carreckwater, a lively village in the heart of the Lake District.

Meg Turner is finally doing the job she loves, but life as a sheep farmer proves tougher than she anticipated. She is a woman trying to prove herself in a man’s world against the backdrop of a brutal war. With her faith being tested in her work, she also fears that the man she loves will betray her again. Meg struggles to allow herself to love baby Lissa when her mother may return to claim her at any moment. Meanwhile, Kath faces new challenges in the WAAF, but cannot stop thinking about her child. Can she ever get over the guilt of leaving her child behind?

Ruby McBride has always been on the wrong side of authority. The grand opening of the Manchester Ship Canal is set to be a day of unfettered festivity for Ruby and her younger sister and brother. Even Queen Victoria will be in attendance. But the glories of the ceremony fade into insignificance when their dying mother delivers them to the imposing oak doors of Ignatius House. Abandoned in the not-so-tender care of the nuns, the siblings are soon separated.

The slums of Poor House Lane are no place to bring up a child, and Kate O'Connor struggles to make ends meet when her beloved husband is killed, leaving her a single mother with a baby to support on the meagre handouts she gleans from charity. So when the childless Tysons, owners of Kendal's shoe factory, offer to adopt her son, Callum, and employ Kate as his nanny, she seizes the chance to ensure he has a better life. To be so close to her son, yet no longer be his mother, is bittersweet.

The Great War is over, and Kate is ready to welcome back Eliot with open arms. But her husband is a changed man. Kate has become used to her independence, and Eliot's return creates tensions both at work and at home, particularly with Kate's son, Callum. It tears Kate apart to see such strife between the two men she loves most. And her sister-in-law seems determined to stir up the animosity in order to benefit her own son. But when tragedy strikes, Kate cannot imagine just how much trouble Lucy's ambition can cause.

Dolly Tomkins has always known what it is to live hand to mouth. In the mean streets of a Salford struggling under the mantle of the Great Depression, the only one making a decent living is the talleyman. Though Nifty Jack has a money bag where his heart should be, Dolly’s mam is in hock up to her ears and in dire need of assistance. But when Jack offers to wipe the slate clean, Dolly just can’t bring herself to trust him. Instead, she takes him on at his own game and in the process endangers everything she holds most dear as a revelation about the past rocks the very foundations of her world.

It is 1936 and Spain is on the brink of civil war. Across Europe, young men are enlisting in the International Brigade to free their Spanish brethren from the grip of fascism, leaving sisters and lovers at home. But not all women are content to be left behind. In Britain, Charlotte McBain and Libby Forbes, friends from opposite sides of the class divide, are determined to do what they can; in Spain, Rosita García Díaz, fiercely loyal to her family and country, cannot stand by and watch.

Jess Delaney has always longed for independence. But when the Blitz reaches Manchester, she is locked in the cellar by her feckless mother, Lizzie. As bombs rain down from a sky turned blood red with flame, Jess waits for Lizzie to return. But fortunes are fickle, and soon Jess finds herself packed off to live with her tyrant Uncle Bernie, a bullying black marketeer. Though he treats her like a servant, she seeks refuge in the Sally Army, and her natural musical talent offers both an escape route and the chance for love.

Cecily Hanson longs to live life on her own terms - to leave the shadow of her overbearing mother and marry her childhood sweetheart once he returns from the Great War. But when her fiancé is lost at sea, this future is shattered. Looking for meaning again, she decides to perform for the troops in France. Life on the front line is both rewarding and terrifying, and Cecily soon finds herself more involved - and more in danger - than she ever thought possible. And her family has followed her to France, with her mother seemingly set on a path of self-destruction.

Brenda Stuart returns to her late husband's home devastated by his loss only to find herself accused of bestowing favours upon the Germans. Life has been difficult for her over the war, having been held in an internment camp in France simply because of her nationality. Thankful that her son at least was safe in the care of his grandmother, she now finds that she has lost him, too, and her life is in turmoil. Prue, her beloved sister-in-law, is also a war widow but has now fallen in love with an Italian POW.

Meg Turner has a hard life. She lives on a lonely farm in the Lake District and her only company is her bully of a father and her brother, who resents her. They want to keep her at home, but Meg is desperate for more. She finds comfort in her best friend, Kath, and Lanky Lawson, who is more of a father figure to her than her own. Her true source of hope though, is Lanky’s son, Jack, who she loves and hopes to marry one day. However, as war looms on the horizon and the world is thrown into chaos, Meg realises that the only thing she can really count on is the land she loves.

Growing up in a poverty-stricken, fatherless household, Dorothy Jordan overcame her humble beginnings to become the most famous comic actress of her day. Beginning her career on the Dublin stage, she moved on to the playhouses of Leeds and York before achieving fame performing at Sheridan's famous theatre on Drury Lane. It was there that Dorothy caught the eye of the Duke of Clarence, later to become King William IV.

Sunday Times bestselling author Freda Lightfoot is back with a heartwarming story of life after the war. She must keep her family together… The war is over and Evie Talbert eagerly awaits the return of her three children from their evacuated homes. But her carefree daughters and son are barely...

Henriette d'Entragues isn't satisfied with simply being mistress of Henry IV of France, she wants a crown too. Despite his promises to marry her, the King is obliged by political necessity to ally himself with Marie de Medici, an Italian princess who will bring riches to the treasury. But Henriette isn't one for giving up easily. She has a written promise of marriage which she intends to use to declare the royal marriage illegal. All she has to do to achieve her ambition is to give Henry a son.

A beautiful and talented actress, Mary Robinson was one of the most famous women of her time. But Mary was destined always to be betrayed by the men she loved: by her father, who abandoned his family; by her husband, who bankrupted the family with his gambling and humiliated his young wife with numerous affairs; and by the Prince of Wales, later King George IV, who fell in love with Mary when he saw her playing Perdita in A Winter's Tale.