'I aint always going to be poor, I made me mind up to that.' Dismissed from her position as housemaid under a cloud of misunderstanding, Tilly True is forced to return home but she is determined to make something of her life. Rather than admit the truth to her poverty-stricken family, she sets out once more in search of employment. Her journey takes her to the London law courts, a grim parsonage in one of the most notorious parts of the East End, and a house of ill-repute, but when she falls for the dangerous charms of Barnaby Palgrave, Tilly soon finds that her troubles have only just begun. Always a good story and a great ending with this author. 518pp, paperback, fairly large print.

A companion to code 94570 On Her Own Two Feet in the same vein and another of Pam Evans' much-loved family sagas. It is 1938 and the threat of war looms on the streets of London. But when the lights go down in the cinema aisles, usherette Daisy Blake is transported to a world of glamour and romance. Among the staff there is much merriment and Daisy soon falls in love with the handsome organist Al Dawson. Then war is declared and just after Al leaves for the frontline, Daisy discovers she's pregnant. Her mother is distraught. She doesn't think Al is right for her daughter and when Daisy's letters to him go unanswered, her mother encourages her to marry John, the cinema's projectionist, to spare her further heartache. As the Blitz rages over London and disaster strikes, Daisy's morale is boosted by her work and her young son Sam who brings her comfort and joy in the troubled times ahead. 338pp, paperback.

We follow beautiful, penniless young mother Ilia as she leaves southern Italy in 1945 to travel alone to London. Her husband, an English colonel, is still away in the war in the East as she begins to learn how to be Mrs Esmond Warner, an Englishwoman. With diamond rings on her fingers and bespoke brogues on her feet, Ilia steps fearlessly into the world of cricket and riding to hounds. But, without prospect of work in a bleak, war-ravaged England, Esmond remembers the glorious ease of Cairo during his series of leave from the desert campaign and he decides to move there to start a bookshop, a branch of W. H. Smith's. But growing resistance to foreign interests, especially British, erupts in the 1952 uprising, and the Cairo Fire burns much of downtown, including the English bookshop. From letters and journals read only after the couple's death, from photographs found coiled in a film cylinder, from gifts and love tokens and mementos, the author pieces together the discoveries her parents made. It is a luminous memoir of a fraught union with unrequited hopes, richly intertwined with myth, the river Lethe feeling as real as the Nile. Vivid recollections of Cairo swirl with ever-present dreams of a city where Warner's parents, friends and associates are still restlessly wandering. 'An entrancing weave of memoir, history, autobiography and fiction, this is one of Marina Warner's most beautiful works.' 416pp, illus. and photos, paperback.

It is the Swinging Sixties and Rosamund Stacey is young and inexperienced at a time when sexual liberation is well on its way. She conceals her ignorance beneath a show of independence and becomes pregnant as a result of a one-night stand. Although single parenthood is still not socially acceptable, she chooses to have the baby rather than to seek an illegal abortion, and finds her life transformed by motherhood. In the helplessness of the baby she finds unexpected joy and fulfilment. You will be fascinated by the description of the NHS as it was in the early 1960s as we enter the life of this postgraduate student living in London. Rosamund's attempt at a do-it-yourself abortion is unforgettable and Rosamund is a marvellous, true Drabble heroine. 196pp, a short and powerful read.

One hot summer afternoon in South Yorkshire, Faro is at a lecture on genetic inheritance. She has travelled from London to the northern mining town where generations of her family have lived and worked to explore her own past. Decades earlier in the early 20th century Bessie Bawtry also ponders her place in the world. A child of unusual determination and precocious intelligence, she longs for the day she will eventually escape. The year is 1905. Bessie sits quietly and studies hard, waiting for the day when she can sit the Cambridge entrance exam. At the other end of the century, her granddaughter Faro Gaulden returns to the town where her grandmother grew up, but for all her exotic ancestry and glamour, has she really travelled any further than them? 400 page paperback.

Set contains A Sister's Obsession, My Beloved Son, The Rag Maid and Dwelling Place. Buy all four paperbacks and save even more.

Trilogy consists of The Winter King, Enemy of God and Excalibur. Buy the trilogy and save even more.

From the bestselling author of the Bridgerton series. Set consists of Just Like Heaven, A Night Like This, The Sum of All Kisses and The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy. Buy the Quartet and save even more.

Volumes I to V. Collect them all at discounted price through Bibliophile Books. Set of five paperbacks.