After teaching and raising her family for most of her life, Agnes Scofield realizes that she is truly weary of the routine her life has become. But how, at 51, can she establish an identity apart from what has so long defined her? Often eloquent, sometimes blunt, and always full of fire, The Scofield clan is not a family that keeps its opinions to itself. As much as she'd like to, Agnes can no more deflect their adamant advice than she can step down as their matriarch. And despite her newfound freedom, Agnes finds herself becoming even more entangled in the family web. She shepherds her daughter-in-law, Lavinia, who moves in with her own two daughters to escape her husband's drinking. She puts out fires, smoothes fraying nerves, and, stunned as anyone, receives a marriage proposal. Having expected her life to become smaller, Agnes is amazed to see it grow instead. Robb Forman Dew intricately weaves together personal and family life into a richly wrought tapestry of the country in the 1950s and beyond.

Being Polite to Hitler

is a moving, frank, and surprising portrait of post-World War II America.

Death and Mr. Pickwick is a vast, richly imagined, Dickensian work about the rough-and-tumble world that produced an author who defined an age. Like Charles Dickens did in his immortal novels, Stephen Jarvis has spun a tale full of preposterous characters, shaggy-dog stories, improbable reversals, skulduggery, betrayal, and valor-all true, and all brilliantly brought to life in his unputdownable book.The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, featuring the fat and lovable Mr. Pickwick and his Cockney manservant, Sam Weller, began as a series of whimsical sketches, the brainchild of the brilliant, erratic, misanthropic illustrator named Robert Seymour, a denizen of the back alleys and grimy courtyards where early nineteenth-century London's printers and booksellers plied their cutthroat trade. When Seymour's publishers, after trying to match his magical etchings with a number of writers, settled on a young storyteller using the pen name Boz, The Pickwick Papers went on to become a worldwide phenomenon, outselling every other book besides the Bible and Shakespeare's plays. And Boz, as the young Charles Dickens signed his work, became, in the eyes of many, the most important writer of his time. The fate of Robert Seymour, Mr. Pickwick's creator, a very different story-one untold before now.Few novels deserve to be called magnificent. Death and Mr. Pickwick is one of them.

???? ‘I was gripped throughout, falling in

deep, empathetic love

with the characters.’ P.H., Amazon reader‘Has that

rare ability to write about love

,

motherhood

and

friendship

without sentimentality.’ Val McDermid‘

Complex

and

satisfying

.’

The Sunday Times

‘Warm, compassionate and

engrossing

.’

Yorkshire Evening Post

Three babies born the same night — to three young mothers, worlds apart but connected by fate.

Discover the heart-wrenching and utterly unforgettable story of three young mothers, and the precious baby girls they gave away.

Manchester, 1960.

When you’re young, unmarried and pregnant, in a shaming society that will never understand, there’s only one place left to go.

St Ann’s mother and baby home

.That’s how restless Joan, who dreams of a glamorous new life in the Big Smoke, finds herself shut away with two unlikely new roommates: spirited Megan and timid country-girl Caroline, who fell pregnant on her first time. Abandoned by their families, they have no one to rely on but each other, as they wait out the days before they birth their babies — only to be parted from them forever.

On a sultry May night,

before the stroke of midnight, three baby girls are born

— and given away to three eagerly waiting families.But for Joan, Megan and Caroline, birth is just the beginning. Try as they might to move on with life beyond the convent walls, their mistakes have a way of catching up with them.

When the past comes knocking, the three women are forced to confront the choices they made. Will they ever be reunited with their lost daughters?

Please note this book was previously published as

Trio

.

Readers of Shirley Dickson, Freda Lightfoot, Sally Worboyes, Bill Kitson, Tania Crosse, Pam Howes and

Sold on a Monday

are sure to be swept away by this emotional family saga, spanning four decades and three generations. Just be sure you have a box of Kleenex at the ready . . .

Readers are losing their hearts to

The Lost Girls of St Ann’s

:

‘

Engrossing

.’

Sunday Telegraph

????? ‘I love books about women’s strength, society and human emotion.

The Lost Girls

had it all!’ Grace‘

Poignant

and true to life.

I couldn’t put it down

.’ Maureen Crank, CEO of After Adoption‘A captivating story filled with tears, tragedy, humour and happiness.’

Booklist

‘Intelligent and emotionally engaging.’

Daily Telegraph

???? ‘As I turned the pages

I kept sobbing

, sometimes with sheer joy and relief and sometimes with deep sorrow . . . Staincliffe’s powers of observation are acute.’ P.H.‘

Homespun

,

humane

, deeply satisfying . . . Staincliffe writes brilliantly and compassionately about things that matter.’

Literary Review

????? ‘I

hated

having

to put this book down

. An emotional read.’ Mary????? ‘Really enjoyed this book . . . a very engaging read.’ Gertrude

ALSO BY CATH STAINCLIFFE

DETECTIVE JANINE LEWIS MYSTERIES

Book 1: BLUE MURDERBook 2: HIT AND RUNBook 3: MAKE BELIEVEBook 4: DESPERATE MEASURES

In Half Forgotten Song, fourteen-year-old Mitzy Hatcher’s lonely life on the wild Dorset coast is changed forever when renowned artist Charles Aubrey arrives to summer there with his exotic mistress and daughters. Mitzy develops a bond with the Aubrey household, gradually becoming Charles's muse. Over the next three summers, a powerful love is kindled in her that grows from childish infatuation to something far more complex… Years later, a young man in an art gallery looks at a hastily drawn portrait and wonders at its intensity. The questions he asks lead him to a Dorset village and to the truth about those fevered summers in the 1930s. With Sunday Times bestselling novel Half Forgotten Song, Katherine Webb spins a historical tale of long kept secrets and obsessive love that fans of Kate Morton and Susanna Kearsley are sure to love.