Showing results by publisher "Hodder & Stoughton" in 20th Century

May 1940. With Nazi forces sweeping across France, invasion seems imminent. The English Channel has never felt so narrow. In rural Sussex, war veteran John Cook has been tasked with preparing the resistance effort, should the worst happen. But even as the foreign threat looms, it's rumours of a missing child that are troubling Cook. A 12-year-old girl was evacuated from London and never seen again, and she's just the tip of the iceberg - countless evacuees haven't made it to their host families. As Cook investigates, he uncovers a dark conspiracy that reaches to the highest ranks of society.

In A Presumption of Death, Jill Paton Walsh tells how World War II changed the lives of Peter, Harriet and their growing family. The story opens in 1940. Harriet Vane - now Lady Peter Wimsey - has taken her children to safety in the country. But the war has followed them: glamorous RAF pilots and even more glamorous land-girls scandalise the villagers; the blackout makes the nighttime lanes as sinister as the back alleys of London.

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.

1948, Berlin. World War II has ended and there is supposed to be peace; but Russian troops have closed all access to the city. Roads, railway lines and waterways are blocked and two million people are trapped, relying on airlifts of food, water and medicine to survive. The sharp eyes of the Russian state police watch everything. Anna and Ingrid are both searching for answers - and revenge - in the messy aftermath of war. Both are living in the shadows of a city where the line between right and wrong has become dangerously blurred. But they cannot give up in the search for a lost child.

From enchanting cliff tops and white sandy bays to the pretty cobbled streets of St Helier, Jersey is known as the land of milk and honey. But for best friends Bea Rose (the local postwoman) and Grace Le Motte (who works in the island's only library) it becomes the frontline to everyday resistance when their beloved island is occupied by German forces in 1940.

Rosa Kusstatscher has built a global fashion empire upon her ability to find the perfect outfit for any occasion. But tonight, as she prepares for the most important meeting of her life, her usual certainty eludes her. What brought her to this moment? As she struggles to select her dress and choose the right shade of lipstick, Rosa begins to tell her incredible story. The story of a poor country girl from a village high in the mountains of Italy. Of Nazi occupation and fleeing in the night. Of hope and heartbreak in Switzerland; ambition, glamour and love in Paris.

London, 1944. Clara Button is no ordinary librarian. While the world remains at war, in East London, Clara has created the country's only underground library, built over the railway tracks in the disused Bethnal Green tube station. Down here, a whole community thrives: with hundreds of bunk beds, a café and a theatre offering shelter from the bombs that fall above. Along with her glamorous best friend and assistant librarian, Ruby Munroe, Clara ensures the library is the beating heart of life underground.

Japanese-occupied Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara's children are in terrible danger. Her eldest child Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day. Jasmin, the youngest, lives confined in a basement for her own safety. And her son, Abel, has disappeared without a trace. Cecily knows two things: that this is all her fault; and that her family must never learn the truth.

Left profoundly deaf after an accident, Émile is no stranger to isolation—or heartbreak. Now, as Nazi planes loom over Guernsey, he senses life is about to change forever. Trapped in a tense, fearful marriage, Isabelle doesn't know what has become of Émile and the future she hoped for. But when she glimpses him from the window of the French House, their lives collide once more. Lieutenant Schreiber is more comfortable wielding a paintbrush than a pistol. But he has little choice in the role he is forced to play in the occupying forces—or in his own forbidden desires.

August, 1940. The war is raging in Europe, but on the home front conflict still seems far away. Dot, living with her mother-in-law and dreading the day that her thuggish husband comes home on leave, is fighting her own battle to contribute to the war effort. Peggy has found confidence as an Air Raid Precaution Warden, despite the jeers of the men she works with - but beneath her pluck she fears for her close-knit family, scattered by the war. And glamorous Vivian, the former debutante, is running away from her own heart and into danger as a volunteer ambulance driver.

A heart-warming, exhilarating novel about one young woman's determination to follow her dreams of becoming a pilot in the early 20th century. In Edwardian England, aeroplanes are a new, magical invention, while female pilots are rare indeed. When shy Della Dobbs meets her mother's aunt, her life changes forever. Great Auntie Betty has come home from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, across whose windswept dunes the Wright Brothers tested their historic flying machines.

Two candidates are vying to become chancellor of Germany. One is a patriot who has served for many years, the other a usurper, stoking the flames of nationalistic hate. Both harbour secrets, but only one knows the truth about the other. Everything turns on the events of one fateful day - 30th April 1945 - and what happened deep beneath Berlin in the Fürherbunker.

1944: Leo Stern arrives at the Nazi camp at Borek with his wife, Irena, and his two daughters. The Sterns are spared from the gas chamber when they witness a murder. But in a place that humanity has deserted, Leo is forced to make unimaginable choices to try to keep his family alive. 1961: For 17 years, Hanna has been unable to remember her identity and how she was separated from her family at the end of the war, until the discovery of a letter among her late uncle's possessions reveals her real name—Hanna Stern—and leads her to Berlin in search of her lost past.

In a Europe on the verge of collapse, the Nazi organisation Ahnenerbe is pillaging sacred landmarks across the world. Their aim is to collect treasures with occult powers, which will help them establish the Third Reich. The organisation's head, Himmler, has sent SS officers to search a forgotten sanctuary in the Himalayas, whilst he tries to track down a mysterious painting. Which ancient power do the Nazis believe they hold the key to?

1915. Best friends Irene, Maggie and Annie are proud members of the newly renamed Women's Police Service. While Britain's men are away fighting in France, the girls are doing their bit by keeping the peace at home in London's East End. But out of the blue, Irene is given the opportunity to be stationed near an army barracks in Grantham, Lincolnshire. Having recently experienced some heartbreak and keen for the adventure, she decides to go. What could possibly go wrong?

With the Great War raging, can they keep Britain going? 1915. On Beth Healey's 18th birthday, she hopes that she will be able to forget the ghastly war and celebrate. But that evening, her twin brother, Ned, announces that he has signed up to fight. No longer able to stand working in her parents' village shop while others are doing their bit, Beth applies to join the Army Post Office's new Home Depot on the Regent's Park and is astounded to be accepted. She will be responsible for making sure that letters and parcels get through to the troops on the front line.

London, October 1940. As German bombers increase their nightly raids on the capital, the Blitz Girls must be braver than ever to protect innocent lives and keep the fight against Hitler alive. As each night becomes more dangerous for the Blitz Girls, will they have the strength to help each other through and keep the light alive in the darkness?

July 1942. Never has the outcome of the war been more uncertain. Britain might have ruled out any risk of invasion, but Stalin's Russia is bowing under the blows of Hitler's armies. The Nazis unleash an occult war in an attempt to tip the scales: whoever reunites the four sacred Swastikas will win. Double Agent Tristan Marcas sets out in search of the Romanov treasure, which is said to harbour the final relic. He's got no time to lose: the battle is about to come to a head.

1944, New Mexico: Alice Katz is a young Jewish physicist, one of the only female doctoral students at her university, studying with the famous Dr Oppenheimer. Her well-to-do family wants her to marry and settle down. Instead, Alice answers her country's call to go deep into the desert and lend her skills to a secret project at the heart of the fight against Germany. At Los Alamos, Alice meets Caleb, who has been assigned to the explosives division. Around them are other young scientists and engineers who have left their ordinary lives behind.

November, 1941. Germany is about to win the war. Only one thing still separates the Nazis from a certain victory: they must find the three remaining all-powerful swastikas and reunite them with a fourth that is safely hidden away in Himmler's mountain stronghold. Churchill has no choice but to mobilise his best man, double agent Tristan Marcas, and employ the most risky techniques to beat them to it. It all comes to a showdown at a ball in Venice.