Showing titles in 20th Century

For the district nurses of Victory Walk, there's been little time to bask in the triumph of D-day as London is facing a new threat - the buzz bombs. Everyone is terrified, never knowing where the next one will strike. Into this tense atmosphere, new nurse Iris must make her mark. She’s had more experience of nursing than many, but since arriving in East London from the countryside, she has struggled to fit in with the other staff. Meanwhile, Alice is facing an agonising wait to hear if her boyfriend, Joe, has survived D-day.

1940: The Spanish Civil War is over, and Madrid lies ruined, its people starving, while the Germans continue their relentless march through Europe. Britain now stands alone while General Franco considers whether to abandon neutrality and enter the war. Into this uncertain world comes Harry Brett: a traumatised veteran of Dunkirk turned reluctant spy for the British Secret Service. Sent to gain the confidence of old school friend Sandy Forsyth, now a shady Madrid businessman, Harry finds himself involved in a dangerous game - and surrounded by memories.

All Hanna Fischer ever wanted to do was to study physics under the great Albert Einstein. But when, as a teenager in 1919, her life is suddenly turned upside-down, she is catapulted into a new and extraordinary life - as a secretary, a scientist, a sister and a spy. From racist gangs in Berlin to gangsters in New York City, Nazis in the 1930s and Hitler's inner circle during the Second World War, Hanna will encounter some of history's greatest minds and most terrible moments, all while desperately trying to stay alive.

It is June 1941 and Denmark is under German occupation. On the rocky coast of Denmark, two brothers, Harald and Arne Olufsen, starkly different in nature, are straining against the rigid confines imposed by their austere, elderly parents and trying to find their own way in life. Meanwhile, a network of MI6 spies is attempting to decipher an encrypted Luftwaffe radio signal which mentions the new Freya-Gerät - a rudimentary form of German radar equipment.

Mattie is a woman with a thrilling past and a chafingly uneventful present. During the Women’s Suffrage Campaign she was a militant. Jailed five times, she marched, sang, gave speeches, smashed windows and heckled Winston Churchill, and nothing - nothing - since then has had the same depth, the same excitement. Now in middle age, she is still looking for a fresh mould into which to pour her energies.

Moving back through the 1940s, through air raids, blacked out streets, illicit liaisons, sexual adventure, to end with its beginning in 1941, The Night Watch is the work of a truly brilliant and compelling storyteller. This is the story of four Londoners, three women and a young man with a past, drawn with absolute truth and intimacy.

Paris, 1939. While working at the Louvre, Éliane Dufort falls for talented painter Xavier. But when the Nazis occupy the city, Xavier leaves for England and Éliane must send her sisters to the country. Broken-hearted, she finds herself working with the mysterious Rose Valland on a dangerous secret mission for the French Resistance. Present Day. Desperate to escape her grief, Remy Lang arrives at a stunning private estate on the French Riviera. While working on her vintage fashion business, she discovers a catalogue of artworks stolen during World War II.

Bristol, 1939. School leaver Maisie Miles suspects her father, a small-time crook, has an ulterior motive for insisting she gets a job at the W. D. & H. O. Wills tobacco factory but keeps it to herself. She's befriended by effervescent Phyllis Mason and kind-hearted Bridget Milligan who take pity on her and take Maisie under their wing. But beneath their happy-go-lucky exteriors, they all harbour dreams and worries about what the future holds.

In 1936, intrepid young Australian journalist Nancy Wake is living in Paris after witnessing firsthand the terror of Hitler’s rise in Europe, firing her resolve to join the fight to defeat the Nazis. When Nancy falls in love with a handsome French industrialist, no sooner has she become Mrs. Henri Fiocca than the Germans invade and Nancy adopts another name, a codename - the first of many.

In the midst of WWII, an English mother, Norah, places her eight-year-old daughter on a ship leaving Malaya, desperate to keep her safe from the Japanese army as they move down through the Pacific. In Singapore, a Welsh-Australian nurse, Nesta, has enlisted to tend to Allied troops. But as the island falls to the Japanese she joins the terrified cargo of people, including the heartbroken Norah, crammed aboard the Vyner Brooke merchant ship. Only two days later, they are bombarded from the air off the coast of Indonesia, and in a matter of hours, the Vyner Brooke lies broken on the seabed.

Rosina Calvert-Lazenby, the only surviving member of her family and widowed by forty-four, has lived at Raven Hall all her life. With war approaching, Rosina must be strong for her daughters, five confident young women who are thick as thieves. When the RAF come to stay at Raven Hall, Rosina finds herself intrigued by their charismatic, albeit young, officer. But is there time for love with the war looming and her eldest daughter leaving home?

Berlin, 1940: Edith Creutzen is 29-years-old and recently widowed when Hitler invites her to be his personal fortune teller. Terrified, she agrees. After all, how can she say no to the most dangerous man in the world? But as she guides his days and builds his trust, she realises the extent of her power and joins forces with British Intelligence to misguide Hitler. But in her way lies Stefan, Hitler's right-hand man. Is he friend or foe, and what will he do if he finds out who she's really working for?

It's 1942. America have just joined the war. Greyhound, an international convoy of 37 allied ships, is in operation. As Captain Ernest Krause leads his first command of a US destroyer, the convoy ploughs through icy, submarine-infested North Atlantic seas. All the while hotly pursued by wolf packs of Nazi U-boats. Grappling with his newfound superiority and haunting self-doubt in 48 hours of desperate peril, Captain Krause's hopeless mission is doomed to fail. But armed with extraordinary courage and grit, hope may just be on the horizon.

The Three Lives of Alix St Pierre is a thrilling, sumptuous work of historical fiction told in three timelines: before, during and after WWII. This completely immersive story takes listeners from the dangerous, intrigue-filled rooms in Switzerland where elites of both sides mingled and schemed during the war, to the glamorous halls of the House of Dior in the golden age of French fashion and journalism.

Norway, 1940. Liv has lived a quiet life on her family farm, dreaming of a happy life after the war is finally over. But all of her dreams vanish when the Nazi soldiers arrive in her village and a senior officer see something special in her... something that Hitler and the high command in Berlin is desperate to have at any cost. England, 1968. Agnes, although made orphan from the war, has grown up happy in the quiet wealth of the English countryside, raised by her adoring grandfather to be a perfect lady.

England, 1959. Laurel Nicolson is 16 years old, dreaming alone in her childhood tree house during a family celebration at their home, Green Acres Farm. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and then observes her mother, Dorothy, speaking to him. And then she witnesses a crime. Fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress, living in London. She returns to Green Acres for Dorothy’s ninetieth birthday and finds herself overwhelmed by memories and questions she has not thought about for decades.

The Palazzo Colombina is home to the Uccello family: three generations of men, trapped together in the dusty palace on Venice's Grand Canal. Awkward 15-year-old Nico. His distant, business-focused father. And his beloved grandfather, Paolo. Paolo is dying. But before he passes, he has secrets he's waited his whole life to share.

1939. Seventeen-year-old Nora Jennings has spent her life secure in the certainty of a bright, happy future - until one night of passion has more catastrophic consequences than she ever could have anticipated. Labelled a moral defective and sectioned under the Mental Deficiency Act, she is forced to endure years of unspeakable cruelty at the hands of those who are supposed to care for her.

Three very different women are recruited to the mysterious Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Vivacious debutante Osla has the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses - but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, working to translate decoded enemy secrets. Self-made Mab masters the legendary codebreaking machines as she conceals old wounds and the poverty of her East-End London upbringing. And shy local girl Beth is the outsider who trains as one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts.

Jack Barlow has a dream. For generations his family have been in service at Trenwith Estate. If he can survive the ravages of war, he’ll return home to build his own mechanic business and become master of his own destiny. Louise Saint-Claire is battling against the odds to run her family farmhouse in German occupied France after her abusive husband is taken prisoner by the Germans. She is determined to survive this brutal and bloody war. But fate throws Jack and Louise together when she finds the wounded British soldier and she decides to risk everything to keep him safe