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| Lilian
Harry |
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| Latest |
| Penny
a Day 2009 |
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| Backlist |
| Goodbye
Sweetheart 1994 |
| | From
the outbreak of World War II to the evacuation of Dunkirk, this book follows the
fortunes of the people who live in a working class street in Portsmouth. The joys,
sorrows and friendships of April Grove are played out against the backdrop of
a seaport arming for war. |
| The
Girls The Left Behind 1995 |
| | This
saga centres on the Budd family, a working-class family in Portsmouth. The horror
of the air raid sirens sounding at night and the naval dockyards buzzing with
the activity of war provide the backdrop to tales of loyalty, heroism, heartache
and love during the city's finest hour. |
| Keep
Smiling Through 1996 |
| | May
1941 - and the people of April Grove, Portsmouth, are beginning to feel the war
will never end. Families are being torn apart, not only by the separations and
loss of war, but by more unexpected frictions, as wives and daughters play new
and independent roles, and children are forced to grow up too fast. Betty faces
conflict at home over the man that she loves; Carol is desperate to escape her
carping mother; and Micky nearly brings tragedy to them all. Yet as the war irredeemably
changes their lives, the families of April Grove learn to endure - and even to
keep smiling through. |
| Moonlight
And Love Songs 1997 |
| | As
the Second World War enters its final year the spirit of the close knit community
in April Grove, Portsmouth refuses to die. Teenager Carol Glaister, forced to
give up her baby son, becomes increasingly obsessed by the need to find him again.
Ambitious, sexy Diane Shaw leaves the aviation factory for a career in the WAAFs
but discovers she is up against far more than she bargained for in both work and
love. And Olive Harker struggles to stay true to a husband she has barely seen
since the war began, her love challenged in a way she would never have dreamed
possible. |
| Love
And Laughter 1998 |
| | The
War is over at last and in Plymouth and Portsmouth, two of Britain's greatest
seaports, 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? |
| Wives
And Sweethearts 1999 |
| | Set
in the late 1950s/early 1960s, a novel which follows the fortunes of two girls
who marry best friends in the Royal Navy, telling of passion, separation, infidelity,
indecision and the hidden strength of marriage. |
| Corner
House Girls |
| | The
story begins at the outset of the war and revolves around the lives of six Lyon's
Corner House Waitresses or 'Nippies' as they are known for their speedy service.
Each girl has a different personality, different family background and different
experience of London in the Blitz. There are happy homes and less happy ones;
there are brothers and lovers in the forces; there are children evacuated to the
countryside and there are relationships that end in romance and tragedy. The Corner
House with its high turnover of customers and interesting variety of staff provides
the perfect backdrop for this heart-warming tale of war, love and loss, and Lilian
Harry's vivid characters bring to life this fascinating period in British history.
|
| Kiss
The Girls Goodbye 2001 |
| | The
follow up to "Corner House Girls" this novel charts the lives of five
waitresses, their loved ones, customers and friends during the harrowing period
of World War II. Through bombs and blackouts, curfews and rationing, romances
and terrible losses, the Corner House remains open for business. |
| Ps
I Love You 2002 |
| | Following
"Corner House Girls" and "Kiss the Girls Goodbye", this is
the third novel in the wartime saga about the girls who work at the Lyons Corner
House in Marble Arch. |
| A
Girl Called Thursday 2002 |
| | Thursday
was born at the end of the First World War and named after the day of the Armistice.
She grows up in Portsmouth as part of the large and warm community there. When
the Second World War breaks out, she becomes a nurse and begins work in the naval
hospital on Portsmouth Harbour. The great Dunkirk rescue brings a mass of wounded
to the hospital where the VAD nurses welcome and tend them. Thursday meets the
soldier who will change her life, and her dedication to the war wounded takes
her on a journey of high drama and great emotion |
| Tuppence
To Spend 2003 |
| | Dan
Hodges is devastated when his wife Nora dies during the early days of the war.
Working long hours in a Portsmouth shipyard, how is he to look after his two sons,
Gordon and Sammy? Then Gordon, something of a tearaway, is sent to an approved
school, which leaves young Sammy alone in the house until neighbours in April
Grove intervene and Sammy is evacuated to Bridge End, a village near Southampton.
Ruth Purslow, a young childless widow, takes him in, her compassion aroused by
his plight. Slowly, as they grow closer, Ruth begins to dread the time when Sammy
must return to Portsmouth. But Dan, enduring the struggle of a man living alone
in a blitzed city, begins to realise that Sammy means far more to him than he
ever thought. He determines to bring Sammy home. For Sammy, the return is far
from easy and when it seems as though Dan has disappeared, he makes the decision
to find his way back to Ruth, no matter how hard the journey or how afraid he
is... A vivid wartime saga of colour and authenticity capturing both the harshness
and the warmth of life during the dark days of the Second World War, |
| A
Promise To Keep 2003 |
| | When
Thursday Tilford returns to Haslar Hospital after two years serving as a VAD in
Egypt, she finds many changes. With the town packed with troops waiting to leave
for the Normandy beaches, and Haslar on standby for the wounded, Thursday's thoughts
go to the two men who are vying for her heart Connor Kirkpatrick, the naval doctor
she met at Haslar in 1940, and army doctor Mark Sangster who travelled on the
troopship to Egypt with her. Although she longs to keep her promise to Connor,
Thursday's feelings for Mark force her to consider the nature of promises and
even, in the end, the nature of love itself. It is only as the war ends and she
is presented with an ultimatum that she understands the truth about love, about
promises and about herself. Lilian Harry's new novel will delight her fans with
the warmth and authenticity that she brings when describing the courage and sacrifice
of wartime. |
| Under
The Apple Tree 2004 |
| | The
Taylor family are having an anxious time during the early days of 1941. The German
blitz has begun and Portsmouth has had some raids, while London has suffered severely.
Then, on January 10, the Luftwaffe unleash their full fury on the city. The Taylors
- Dick, Cissie and their daughter Judy, together with Cissie's younger sister
Polly and her daughter Sylvie - are bombed out of their home, while Judy finds
her local government job relocated from the gutted Guildhall to a hotel in Southsea.
Then Judy's fiance Sean is killed, increasing her bond with Polly. Judy is befriended
by the Lady Mayoress who invites her and Polly to join her team of WVS workers.
Together they work on various funds: running canteens, accompanying evacuee children
to their destinations, helping servicemen's families, feeding and clothing the
homeless and organising collections of scrap iron, rags and bones. Gradually they
find their own grief healing, and the possibility of love opens up for them once
more... |
| Dance
Little Lady 2004 |
| | Kate,
Sally, Maxine and Elsie work at Priddy's Hard, the great naval armament depot
on the shores of Portsmouth harbour. The hours are long and the work difficult
and dangerous; the women who work here are routinely handling cordite, shells,
torpedoes and bombs. But even in the dark days of World War II they still find
time to enjoy themselves. There are ENSA concerts in the canteen and hops in the
local drill hall, while Canadian and American soldiers flood into the streets
of the garrison town, giving ample opportunity for flirtation and romance. 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 over the loss of her
son Graham, killed in the Blitz. And spirited young Sally has lied about her age
to gain admission to the Hard, risking another kind of danger amongst the gunpowder
and the shells. 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. |
| A
Farthing Will Do 2005 |
| | Ruth
Purslow, Lizzie Warren and Heather Knight 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. The 'love and laughter' that had been promised turn to bewilderment,
anger and disappointment. Yet somehow the determination that has strengthened
the families of Bridge End and April Grove all through six years of war comes
to their aid again, and although nothing is quite as they had hoped it would be,
each is able to move on into a future without war, and learn to live with peace.
|
| Three
Little Ships 2005 |
| | 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 of the British
and French Armies trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk. Among them were three very
different crafts - a London fireboat from the docklands of the East End, manned
by skipper Ollie Mears and his crew; a small pleasure steamer from the River Dart
in Devon, commanded by 21-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 Rowley and crewed by his son Charles and son-in-law Toby. As
each one ferries exhausted men from the beaches to the waiting ships, under incessant
fire from enemy aircraft and in a sea that is awash with debris and bodies, the
men are unknowingly united by a powerful driving force - the desperate need to
find one man who matters more to them than anyone else. Ollie is searching for
his son Joe; Robby for his brother Bill; and Toby for his brother Alex. Each of
the 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. Charles' sister Paddy, only 17 years old, is deeply in love with
Alex, and begs to be allowed to go too. When permission is refused, she takes
matters into her own hands, with startling results. On the beaches of Dunkirk,
the three men wait for rescue not knowing if they will ever return home. They
can only wait, watch and pray. Lilian Harry's dramatic novel is full of the warmth
and compassion her readers have come to love. |
| The
Bells Of Burracombe 2006 |
| | 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. |
| A
Song At Twilight 2006 |
| | It
is 1941 and at quiet Harrowbeer, in Devon, a new airfield has been built. Amongst
the squadrons moving in are pilots from Britain, Canada and Poland. The airfield,
with its noise and its population, has a massive impact on the peaceful villages
nearby - an impact that will affect some inhabitants for the rest of their lives.
A SONG AT TWILIGHT tells the story of three such women who will never forget Harrowbeer.
Alison Knight, married to pilot Andrew and newly pregnant, comes to be with her
husband in the nearby picturesque village of Buckland Monachorum. Renie Wilkins,
a WAAF from Portsmouth, is posted to Harrowbeer, first as a parachute packer and
then to work in the Operations Room. Even local girl May Prettyjohn finds herself
caught up in the life of the RAF, watching the aircraft take off on their dangerous
missions over the English Channel and into France and Germany, and waiting - as
do both Alison and Renie and all the other men and women of Harrowbeer - for the
same number of planes to come back. This, however, is war - and not all the aircraft
return. Of the men who catch at these women's hearts - Andrew Knight, young Ben
Hazelwood and the Polish airman Stefan Dabrowski - not all may survive. But throughout
all the joys, troubles and anguish of love and war, the work of the airfield will
go on. |
| A
Stranger In Burracombe 2007 |
| | Like
the rest of the nation, Burracombe is shocked when King George the Sixth dies
suddenly in February 1952. But in the midst of their grief, the arrival of a stranger
in the village on the very same day goes almost unnoticed. As they move into a
new Elizabethan era, the villagers have their own concerns - farmer's daughter
Val Tozer needs to find a home before she can marry her sweetheart; Hilary Napier
is struggling to come to terms with her new responsibilities, and Stella Simmons
is still getting to know the sister she thought she had lost. Old enemies Jacob
Prout and Jed Fisher carry on their lifelong feud; Joyce Warren and Constance
Bellamy clash yet again and sadness touches at least one of the cottages, while
at the village school the children are as lively, as inquisitive and as comical
as ever. Jennifer Tucker is searching for a family she hadn't even realised existed.
To help her, she enlists the aid of Basil Harvey, the vicar, and gradually, as
the village becomes involved in her search, more than one person is led to question
their own ideas about families and what they mean. |
| Storm
Over Burracombe 2007 |
| | Helen
Ayres is a versatile actress with extensive experience on stage and in radio and
with many voice overs on television and radio to her credit. She is a member of
the BBC Drama Repertory Company and has played over 100 roles for them, most recently
Dabby Bryant in Our Country's Good, for the BBC World Service. |
| A
Penny A Day 2008 |
| It
is December 1952. A wedding is being planned in April Grove, Portsmouth, and Jess
and Frank Budd want to bring together all their friends and neighbours, both from
April Grove itself and from Bridge End, where the family was evacuated during
the Second World War. They even invite Stella Simmons and her sister Maddy, who
now live in the Devonshire village of Burracombe. Dan and Ruth Hodges attend,
together with Dan's son Sammy, who immediately falls in love with his childhood
playmate Maddy. But Stephen Napier, son of the Squire of Burracombe, proves a
strong rival and Maddy is not yet ready to make such a momentous decision about
her life. Meanwhile, Ruth's niece Lizzie and her husband Alec seem to have overcome
the problems they encountered when Alec returned from the prisoner-of-war camp
which almost broke him. But their happiness is threatened when a face from Lizzie's
past reappears in her life and turns everything upside down. |
| Springtime
In Burracombe 2009 |
| The
village of Burracombe is looking forward to the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth
the Second, but the year of 1953 is to prove one of heartbreak as well as celebration.
While Stella Simmons begins to plan her wedding to Felix Copley, her sister Maddy
is only just coming to terms with the loss of her own fiance; Val and Luke Ferris
are wondering if they will ever become parents, and Hilary Napier's chances of
marriage seem first to come closer, then to recede. The Tozer family too face
anxiety, as grandmother Minnie fights for her life, Tom and Joanna's premature
twins battle with their own crisis and Jackie, working and living in Plymouth,
is determined to live her own life. Meanwhile, the life of the village goes on,
with all its ups and downs, its feuds and differences as bossy Joyce Warren tries
to organise everything and everyone, Miss Kemp and Stella plan yet another event
for the school, Jacob Prout strives to keep Burracombe looking its best for the
festivities and, in the midst of it all, romance comes from a quite unexpected
direction. |
| An
Heir for Burracombe 2010 |
| There's
nowhere quite like Burracombe - a village full of drama and intrigue... It's
a summer's day in 1953 that turns Hilary Napier's life upside-down. When Marianne,
a beautiful French woman, knocks on her door, Hilary can't help but be struck
by Robert, the young boy with her. He has the same eyes as the brother she lost
in the war. As she listens to Marianne's sad tale, she realises her soldier-brother
lives on the in the son he never met. But this is only the first revelation...As
the village of Burracombe tries to make sense of the strangers in their midst,
there is also much to celebrate. A wedding is being planned, a birth is imminent
and a courtship just beginning. Yet as always, life is complicated and some people
must learn cruel truths about the world. Hilary has her friends to turn to as
she tries to find out the facts about her brother's past. But it's her future
she worries about - now there's a new Napier in the village, and if Robert is
the heir to Burracombe, where does that leave Hilary? And is this young boy ready
for all that it means? Lilian Harry takes her readers on another wonderful journey
through the lives of characters old and new - all of which feel like friends by
the novel's end. |
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