When Millie's mother abandons her late one afternoon in 1854, fate brings the seven year old to Aggie's door, and life will never be the same for either of them. Known locally as 'Raggie Aggie' for her business of trading rags and old clothes, the older woman knows the dangers waiting for such a strikingly pretty girl left alone in their rough area of Newcastle, and sees no other option but to take her in. The unlikely pair soon form an unexpectedly strong bond, but there will be obstacles in their paths. Will their friendship survive? Millie Forester's advance through the coming years to the threshold of womanhood is the core of The Rag Maid, as gripping and socially concerned an historical novel as Catherine Cookson has ever written. Her skills of narrative and characterisation provide a spectrum of the good and evil of the Victorian era and frankly confronts the terrible menace of child corruption and be warned, there is depravity and death. This page turner is written from the heart. 427pp, paperback.

The first in the Smythe-Smith quartet, a witty series by the author of the beloved Bridgerton novels. Honoria Smythe-Smith, the youngest daughter of the eldest son of the Earl of Winstead, plays the violin in the annual musicale performed by the Smythe-Smith Quartet. She's well aware that they are dreadful and in fact, she freely admits to her cousins that she is probably the worst of the bunch, but she's the sort who figures that nothing good will come of being mortified, so she puts on a good show and laughs about it. Marcus Holroyd is the best friend of her brother Daniel, who lives in exile. He has promised to watch out for Honoria and takes his responsibility very seriously, but he has his work cut out for him when Honoria sets off for Cambridge determined to marry by the end of the season. She has her eye on the only unmarried Bridgerton who's a bit wet behind the ears. When her advances are spurned, can Marcus swoop in and steal her heart in time for the musicale? A light fun read, and a great first book in the series which also includes characters from Bridgerton. 374pp, paperback with fairly large print and line art.

Book two in the witty quartet. Anne Wynter's job as governess to three highborn young ladies can be a challenge. In a single week she finds herself hiding in a closet full of tubas, playing an evil queen in a play, and tending to the wounds of the oh-so-dashing Earl of Winstead. After years of dodging unwanted advances, he is the first man who has truly tempted her and it is getting harder and harder to remind herself that a governess has no business flirting with a nobleman. Daniel Smythe-Smith might be in mortal danger but that's not going to stop the young earl from falling in love. When he spies a mysterious woman at his family's annual musicale, he vows to pursue her, but Daniel has an enemy, one who has vowed to see him dead. And when Anne is thrown into peril, Daniel will stop at nothing to ensure their happy ending. 373pp, paperback with line art.

Hugh Prentice has never had patience for dramatic females, and if Lady Sarah Pleinsworth has ever been acquainted with the words shy or retiring, she has long since tossed them out the window. Besides, a reckless duel has left this brilliant mathematician with a ruined leg, and now he could never court a woman like Sarah, much less dream of marrying her. Sarah has never forgiven Hugh for the duel he fought that nearly destroyed her family, but even if she could find a way to forgive him, it wouldn't matter. She doesn't care that his leg is wounded, it's his personality she can't abide. But forced to spend a week in close company, they discover that first impressions are not always reliable, and when one kiss leads to two, three and four, the mathematician may lose count, and the lady may, for the first time, find herself speechless. The third book in the quartet. 373pp, fairly large print and line art. Paperback.

The final book in the Quartet finds Sir Richard Kenworthy with less than a month to find a bride. He knows he can't be too picky, but when he sees Iris Smythe-Smith hiding behind her cello at her family's infamous musicale, he thinks he might have struck gold. She's the type of girl you don't notice until the second or third look, but there's something about her, something simmering under the surface, and he knows she's the one. Iris Smythe-Smith is used to being underestimated. With her pale hair and quiet, sly wit, she tends to blend into the background, and she likes it that way. So when Sir Richard demands an introduction, Iris is suspicious. He flirts and charms her, gives every impression of a man falling in love, but she can't quite believe it's all true. When he proposes, Iris feels certain that he's hiding something, even as her heart tells her to say yes. 378 weak and wobbly kneed romantic pages. Fairly large print and a quick read, line art.

In the Dark Ages, a legendary warrior arises to unite a divided land. Uther, the High King of Britain, is dead. His only heir is the infant Mordred, yet each of the country's lesser kings seek to claim the crown for themselves. While they squabble and spoil for war, a host of Saxon armies gather, preparing for invasion. But no one has counted on the fearsome warlord Arthur. Handed power by Merlin and pursuing a doomed romance with the beautiful Guinevere, Arthur knows he will struggle to unite the country, let alone hold back the Saxon enemy at the gates. Yet destiny awaits him. A brilliant retelling of the Arthurian legend combining myth, history and thrilling battlefield action. We have all three books in the set. Penguin paperback, 495pp.

Sexually explicit in parts and heartbreaking because of its Holocaust background, the novel is set in Poland 1941. Jewish mother Róza and her five year old daughter have fled their home and gone into hiding. Living in a farmer's barn, Shira is forbidden from making a sound. Her inventive mother keeps her occupied with silent games and their own sign language and in the evenings they occasionally whisper with Róza singing and making sure Shira grows up with her parents? love of music. The years that follow focus on their survival and the lengths a mother will go to protect her child when one day they must leave their hiding place and face an impossible choice - Róza must keep her daughter close by her side or take a chance to survive by letting her go. A very emotional novel where music soothes the soul and gives a voice when you are unable to speak, releasing sorrow and aching, joy and deep needs and heartache. You will cry tears and have goosebumps in a novel about the bond between mother and daughter and the sacrifices made for love. 291pp, paperback.

'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.