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‘Blew my mind… so magically written and most of all that it is based on true events… a hard-hitting, soul-crushing book… I loved every moment of it… immersive, heart-wrenching, I feel emotional writing this review.’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars Wanted: Company Daughters. Virtuous young ladies to become the brides of industrious settlers in a foreign land. The Company will pay the cost of the lady’s dowry and travel. Returns not permitted, orphans preferred. Amsterdam, 1620. Jana Beil has learned that life rarely provides moments of joy. Having run away from a violent father, her days are spent searching for work in an effort to stay out of the city brothels, where desperate wome...
Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, recuperating from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III that bears no resemblance to the Wicked Uncle of history. Could such a sensitive, noble face actually belong to one of the world's most heinous villains, a venomous hunchback who may have killed his brother's children to make his crown secure? Or could Richard have been the victim, turned into a monster by the usurpers of England's throne? Grant determines to find out once and for all, with the help of the British Museum and an American scholar, what kind of man Richard Plantagenet really was and who killed the Princes in the Tower.
Thirteenth century France. Bridget has grown up mastering the mystical gifts of her ancestor, Mary Magdalene, whose unbroken female lineage has kept a legacy of wisdom alive for a thousand years. But the all-powerful Catholic Church has sworn to destroy Bridget for using her healing talents and supernatural abilities. Bridget's duty to continue the bloodline leads her into the arms of Raoul de Montvallant - a Catholic. But when the Church's savage religious intolerance causes Raoul to turn rebel, a terrible vengeance is exacted by Simon de Montfort, the unstoppable Catholic leader of a crusade against peaceful 'heretics'. As war rages on, it is the children of these passionate souls, Magda and Dominic, who must strive to preserve the ancient knowledge for future generations - and find the love and courage to endure...
Can love and friendship survive hardship and war?Following the gripping story of the Ryan family in Margaret Dickinson's top ten bestseller The Buffer Girls, Daughters of Courage sees Emily and Trip fight to keep their new life afloat in the turbulent 1930s.Emily Ryan has gone up in the world since her arrival in Sheffield. Brought there by her mother's ambitious schemes for her brother, Josh, she had found work as a buffer girl polishing cutlery in the city's famous trade. With the help of a friend, Nell, Emily eventually set up her own buffing business employing those with whom she had once worked.Married to Thomas Trippet - 'Trip' to his friends - they plan to build a life together, but when Lucy, Nell's daughter, disappears it seems that the menace from the past is never very far away. Trip is now a partner with his half-brother in the Trippet family's cutlery manufacturing business, but their success is threatened by the Great Depression of the 1930s. Can Emily keep their family and friends safe from the shadow of unemployment?And then comes the threat of another war . . .
One woman’s investigation into the nature of memory, the past, and above all, love. All families have their myths and Juliet Nicolson’s was no different: her flamenco dancing great-great-grandmother Pepita, the flirty manipulation of her great-grandmother Victoria, the infamous eccentricity of her grandmother Vita, her mother’s Tory-conventional background. A House Full of Daughters takes us through seven generations of women. In the nineteenth-century slums of Malaga, the salons of fin-de-siècle Washington DC, an English boarding school during the Second World War, Chelsea in the 1960s, these women emerge for Juliet as people in their own right, but also as part of who she is and where she has come from
'[I was] completely transported . . . so sparely and yet vividly told. I admired it immensely' Clare Chambers 'Aroa Moreno Durán writes with a rare sensitivity about the unconsidered consequences of giving everything up for love' Claire Fuller Winner of the Premio Ojo Crítico Katia has grown up amongst the ruins of the once mighty Berlin, now shattered by Allied bombs. In their tiny, freezing flat, Katia's father teaches her of the righteousness of the new Soviet republic, who will always keep watch over them. As a young woman, a chance encounter with a man from the west causes Katia to realise there might be more to life on the other side of the wall. But blinded by the first blush of love, she fails to understand that it's not what lies ahead, but what she will leave behind. Translated from its original Spanish, The Communist's Daughter is a spare and exquisite novel that depicts twentieth century Europe through one family's tragic story. 'Beautifully written, powerfully realised. A novel that touches the heart' Kate Hamer
An intimate look at the transformative power of women's sexual experiences. Based on the stories of ordinary American women, Aphrodite’s Daughters explores the central role of sexuality in women's spiritual journey. Witty, wise, entertaining, and compassionate, Aphrodite's Daughters quickly became an underground classic, and has changed the lives of thousands of women.
Based on the recovery and analysis of the letters and private papers of the wife, daughters, daughters-in-law, and granddaughters of Richard Boyle (1566-1643), first earl of Cork, this book examines how these women perceived and wrote their lives as individuals and as members of their famous family. The book explores the theme of identity through close readings of the extant texts from a number of perspectives: the figuration of Ireland; gender; the impact of civil war rupture; Protestantism; and legacy-making. This original showcasing of the Boyle women's largely forgotten female-voiced texts further illuminates how these women used the occasion of family writing and record-keeping to develop self-presentation strategies that allowed them to situate their lives at the centre of the transformations that were taking place in early modern Ireland and Britain.
Provocative assessment of how new ideas about motherhood and domesticity in pre-Revolutionary France helped women demand social and political equality later on