Trisha Ashley - The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
Can her heart be mended too?
Garland Fairford has it all - her dream job as a historical Costumier in London and handsome fiancee, Marco.
Whilst creating a replica of a dress worn by a Victorian actress, Garland, an orphan, meets a long-lost relative - Honey Fairford. Garland is delighted and intrigued to discover Honey is planning to open a wedding dress museum in Lancashire.
When Garland loses her fiancee and her job in the same week, she accepts Honey's offer to work at the museum. But building a new life for herself is put on hold when a ghost from her past, Thom, reappears.
As Garland repairs beautiful vintage wedding dresses for the museum, and her relationship with Thom, could this finally be the chance for her own happy-ever-after?
Eliza Morton - The Orphans from Liverpool Lane
1944, Liverpool.
Marcia is only twelve years old the first time she is sent to the orphanage with her older sister, Cynthia. With their father in a POW camp in Singapore, her mother is struggling to cope and hands them over to the nuns to be 'orphans of the living' - a harsh term for those children with living parents, whose families have abandoned them.
Things look up when their father finally returns and the girls are allowed home but it's clear the years in the camp have taken their toll on the sweet man Marcia barely remembers and the family disintegrates.
Cynthia finds an escape with an aunt and via her ambitions to be a dancer but Marcia is sent back to the orphanage. And while she finds friends among her fellow 'orphans' it's no substitute for the family she so desperately craves . . .
Juliet Greenwood - The Shakespeare Sisters
Stratford-upon-Avon, 1940. Rosalind Arden, born into one of the oldest families in England, has grown up running wild through the walled gardens and secret passages of historic Arden House, known to have once been frequented by Shakespeare himself. But centuries of squandered wealth have left the family destitute, and Papa Arden plans to replenish the coffers by securing hasty marriages to the highest bidder for Rosalind and her sisters. Passionate and headstrong, Rosalind is quickly running out of ways to avoid this fate.
But then war comes to England, and not even Arden House can remain untouched. As food shortages grip the villages and England is shrouded by black-outs, Rosalind is unexpectedly swept into the orbit of soft-spoken aspiring architect Guy Thompson… just weeks before he’s sent to fight.
Heartbroken, Rosalind knows she can’t return to the golden prison of Arden. With little more than a leather-bound book of Shakespeare in tow – a secret bequest from her mother – she runs away to London. There, she throws herself into the war effort, photographing the heart-wrenching aftermath of the blitz – building a life for herself she never thought possible.
Until death comes to Arden and Rosalind is called home to devastating news. With Guy having inexplicably cut contact and her father on the edge of ruin, Rosalind must choose between the life she has made for herself and saving her beautiful, broken Arden House, home to the man who has only ever tried to bend her to his will…
