Ben Wilder, a world-renowned, widowed architect, designs a house for himself and his estranged teen-aged children. Knowing this commission will enhance her contractor reputation, feisty Annie Calhoun submits a winning bid with near-zero profit. But when family and weather-based delays make it impossible to meet the penalty-carrying deadline, she makes her exacting employer an offer he can’t refuse. Contemporary Romance by Joyce C. Ware; originally published by Zebra Romance “To Love Again”

Anne Wakefield travels halfway around the world for love. But when she arrives in Canada from England at the end of World War II, she discovers the handsome Canadian pilot she'd fallen in love with has married someone else. Heartbroken, she prepares to return to London, though she has nothing left there to return to. Her former fiance's mother makes a suggestion: marriage to her other son. Badly wounded and scarred during the war, Erik Gustafson thinks he's a poor substitute for his brother. Although he loves Anne almost from the first time he sees her, he cannot believe she would ever be able to love him as he is - especially as he might be after another operation on his bad leg. Anne sees the beauty of his heart. The cold prairie winter may test her courage, but can she prove to Erik that her love for him is real?

The basis for the PBS Masterpiece series starring Samantha Bond (Downton Abbey) and Francesca Annis (Cranford) Away from the frontlines of World War II, in towns and villages across Great Britain, ordinary women were playing a vital role in their country’s war effort. As members of the Women’s Institute, an organization with a presence in a third of Britain’s villages, they ran canteens and knitted garments for troops, collected tons of rosehips and other herbs to replace medicines that couldn’t be imported, and advised the government on issues ranging from evacuee housing to children’s health to postwar reconstruction. But they are best known for making jam: from produce they grew on every available scrap of land, they produced twelve million pounds of jam and preserves to feed a hungry nation. Home Fires, Julie Summers’s fascinating social history of the Women’s Institute during the war (when its members included the future Queen Elizabeth II along with her mother and grandmother), provides the remarkable and inspiring true story behind the upcoming PBS Masterpiece series that will be sure to delight fans of Call the Midwife and Foyle’s War. Through archival material and interviews with current and former Women’s Institute members, Home Fires gives us an intimate look at life on the home front during World War II.

This perspective allows a unique view of the development of an industrial society not just from the ground up but from the hearth up.

For fans of Liane Moriarty comes a story of a community in crisis from best-selling Australian author Fiona Lowe. When a deadly wildfire tears through small town Myrtle, nestled along Australia’s breathtaking Great Ocean Road, the town’s buildings — and the lives of its residents — are left as smoldering ash. Eighteen months later, Myrtle stands restored, shiny and new. But is the outside polish just a veneer? For four women in particular, the fire fractured their lives and their relationships. Julie thinks tourism could bring some financial stability to their town and soon prods Claire, Bec and Sophie into joining her women’s support group. But the scars of trauma run deep. As family secrets and town lies emerge, and each woman faces the damage the wildfire wrought, a shocking truth will emerge that will shake the town to its newly rebuilt foundations… With her sharp eye for human flaws, bestselling author Fiona Lowe writes an evocative, page-turning tale of everyday people fighting for themselves, their families and their town. See for yourself; read Home Fires today.

Anne Davis has returned to the house where she grew up, trading her glamorous Manhattan lifestyle for a harsh winter on a wind-whipped New England island. Her marriage has crumbled in the wake of a tragic accident. Now she has returned to the home on Salt Whistle Raod that has always meant shelter, security, family and love. When she awakens one snowy night to a fire that roars through the old house, Anne escapes--but runs back into the blaze to save something so precious that it's worth risking her life for. It is that reckless act of blind desperation that sets a miracle in motion.

The story of Ivor Novello, featuring his best tunes, archive material from the Imperial War Museum and an exploration of how music was used as a morale booster in World War I.

As taps echoes across the cookie-cutter housing areas of upstate New York’s Fort Drum, the wives turn on the evening news, both hoping for and dreading word of their husbands overseas. It’s a ritual played out on military bases across the nation as the waiting wives of Karen Houppert’s extraordinary new book endure a long, lonely, and difficult year with their husbands far from home. Houppert, a prize winning journalist, spent a year among these women, joining them as they had babies, raised families, ran Cub Scout troops, coached soccer–and went to funerals. The waiting wives include Lauren, twenty-six, whose Navy SEAL husband was killed in Afghanistan; Heidi, peace activist and Army wife whose life is a daily struggle with her conscience; Crystal, a nineteen-year-old raising two babies on a shoestring while her husband fights in the Middle East; Tabitha, who becomes the alleged victim of murderous domestic violence at the hands of her Special Operations boyfriend; and Danette, once an Army brat and now a devoted Air Force wife, who teaches, raises two teens, and fills her days with endless volunteer work. Houppert shows that these women make some of the same sacrifices of their personal liberties as their husbands do and yet garner none of the respect accorded their spouses. Today, these military wives find themselves torn between an entrenched tradition that would keep them in a Leave It to Beaver family ideal and a modern social climate suggesting that women are entitled to more–a career of their own, self-determination, and a true parenting partner. Meanwhile, the military concocts family-friendly policies and spends millions on new programs designed to appease military wives–and to maintain them as staunch supporters who will encourage their husbands’ reenlistment. The Army likes to say that it “recruits soldiers, but retains families.” And indeed, the future of the all-volunteer force hinges on the success of this mission. Though Army brass speak glowingly of the “Army Family Team,” this team is often deeply divided over strategy–and even goals. A gritty, behind-the-scenes look at the tour of duty from the domestic front, Home Fires Burning provides a fascinating, fresh look at an enormous American institution and the families that live in its shadow.

PART TWO in a brand new FOUR-PART ebook serial from the creator of ITV's smash hit series, Home Fires. The story continues . . . The women of Great Paxford are no strangers to hardship, but as the war progresses they encounter challenges they never imagined. Pat Simms found a moment of happiness, but her husband's scheming brought that to an end. Yet Pat can't help but hope for another chance. Teresa thought all her troubles would disappear when she married Nick, but chance encounters with a young pilot leave her torn and conflicted. Still reeling from the death of her husband, Frances Barden worries she's made the wrong choice in sending her young ward away. Anything could happen to a boy at war time . . . And all the while the Campbell family struggle to hold their family together as illness takes a toll. Don't miss a minute of this enthralling new series. Keep the Home Fires Burning - Part One: Spitfire Down! is available now. Search 9781785763564. Ready for the next instalment? Keep the Home Fires Burning - Part Three: Strangers Amongst Us is out now! Search 9781785763588. Perfect for fans of Call the Midwife, Granchester and Foyles War. If you adore the novels of Nadine Dorries, Diney Costello and Daisy Styles then this is an unmissable series for you.