A Place to Call Home: Utterly Heart-wrenching and Uplifting Historical Fiction

A Place to Call Home: Utterly Heart-wrenching and Uplifting Historical Fiction
Author: Lizzie Page
Publisher: Shilling Grange Children's Hom
Total Pages: 414
Release: 2022-02-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781803140339

Shilling Grange Orphanage, England, 1949. She would do anything to protect the innocent children in her care. But soon they could be sent into danger... When Clara Newton's fiancé died during World War Two, she thought her life was over. But now she looks after orphans who, like her, lost everything during the war. Children like sweet little Peg who won't speak, and Joyce whose body was scarred by polio. Clara loves them all dearly, even though life as a housemother can be lonely - especially now that Ivor, a D-Day war hero with dark brown eyes who once helped with the children, has disappeared... But then Clara receives some terrible news. The orphanage is going to be sold and the children sent far away. Joyce and Peg will be taken to a notorious home for disabled children. The others will be sent to Australia, where Clara fears they will be mistreated by unknown families. Any day now, the children could lose everything she worked so hard to provide... With wealthy buyers lined up to purchase Shilling Grange and a ship already docked waiting to carry the children away, Clara is desperate. She must find loving new homes for them quickly, but time is running out... Can she save the orphans before they lose everything all over again? And even if Ivor returns when she needs him the most, will it be too late? A completely heart-wrenching and unforgettable historical novel, set after the devastation of World War Two. Perfect for fans of Before We Were Yours, Diney Costeloe and The Orphan Sisters. What readers are saying about Lizzie Page: 'What an emotional read!... At parts I found myself shouting "no". At others I just cried... Absolutely loved it.' Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'My heart is full! Oh, I adored this book so much!... There were moments of pure joy and the book left me feeling uplifted and with a full heart.' Motherhood for Slackers ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Exceptional... hits you for six... I am over the moon... brilliantly written and you fall in love... a feel good book that will make you cry... oh my word I loved this.' Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Wow... this book is outstanding... I couldn't put it down.' Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'I took to all the children with all my heart, such an emotional tale... full of love, compassion and humour... a truly remarkable touching story.' Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Absolutely loved this... I could hardly bear to finish it... Highly recommend!' Jill Mansell ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'It took me about two pages to fall in love with Clara... this book just kept me wanting to know more.' Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'This book warmed my heart... Each character is so very special. You will laugh at their childish pranks, their little escapades and cheer at their successes... A delightful, heart-warming story.' Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Orphanage

The Orphanage
Author: Lizzie Page
Publisher: Forever
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2024-06-25
Genre:
ISBN: 9781538766088

A gritty, heartbreaking story of love and hope in the darkest of times, perfect for readers of Erika Robuck and Shirley Dickson. Shilling Grange Orphanage, England, 1948: Clara Newton is the new housemother of Shilling Grange Orphanage. Many of the children have been bombed out of their homes and left without families, their lives torn apart by the war, just like Clara's. Devastated by the loss of her fiancé, a brave American pilot, Clara needs a place to start again and the orphans are in desperate need of her help. But funds are short, children cry out in the night, and the tearful girls tells Clara terrible stories about the nuns who previously ran Shilling Grange. Clara cannot bear to see them suffer, yet it soon becomes clear that she's in over her head. But Clara is not completely alone. Living next door is Ivor: war hero and handyman with deep brown eyes. Having grown up at the orphanage, he's also hesitant to trust anyone. Yet his gentle voice and bottomless patience helps him soothe the orphans better than anyone. With his help, the orphans--and Clara--have someone to give them hope. But does she dare she open her heart to love again?

When I Was Yours

When I Was Yours
Author: Lizzie Page
Publisher: Bookouture
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2019-04-16
Genre:
ISBN: 9781786819499

We stand in the back of the hall as the children troop in. Big ones, little ones. Straggly hair, cropped hair, curls... the adults surge forward to choose and soon there is just one child left, a little girl sitting on the floor. She is thin as a string bean and her sleeve is ragged and damp - like she's been chewing it. 1939. War has broken out - hundreds of children are evacuated to the countryside to keep them safe from the bombs raining down on the cities. Wrenched from her family in the East End and sent more than a hundred miles away, seven-year-old Pearl Posner must adapt to a new life away from everything familiar. Vivienne didn't ask for an evacuee child. In fact, she's not sure her heart can take it. So many years, so many disappointments... Vivi's ability to feel love left her the day she learned the truth about her husband Edmund, and when she made the worst decision of her life and left her cherished sister to her fate. But like it or not, Pearl is here to stay, and what with the rumours about what's happening to children in mainland Europe, it might be the last safe place for her. As Pearl and Vivi learn how to live together, they discover that they have a connection that runs more deeply than they could ever have guessed - from before Pearl was born, and deep into Vivienne's past. And will it be Pearl - the little girl who says so little and sees so much - who forces Vivi to finally confront what happened in her marriage... and to the long-lost sister she loved so dearly and let fall so far, just when she needed Vivi most? A beautiful and emotional wartime historical novel - heartbreaking, moving and unforgettable. Perfect for fans of Orphan Train and Before We Were Yours. Readers absolutely love Lizzie Page: 'Once in a while a book comes along that just burrows its way into the heart of me, that stirs my soul. This is one such book... I spent quite a bit of this book trying to swallow the lump in my throat or wiping my eyes... God, I could gush and gush... Her writing is sublime, her plotting is perfection and her characters are fantastic. This is one special book.' Short Book and Scribes, 5 stars 'Made me feel so emotional... This was such a wonderful read, which certainly tugged at my heart-strings. I loved this author's writing and it was so realistic that I felt like I was actually there. A perfect read and a perfect tribute to the wonderful women who did their duty as War Nurses.' Stardust Book Reviews

Loving Frank

Loving Frank
Author: Nancy Horan
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2007-08-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0345502256

I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current. So writes Mamah Borthwick Cheney in her diary as she struggles to justify her clandestine love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright. Four years earlier, in 1903, Mamah and her husband, Edwin, had commissioned the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives. In this ambitious debut novel, fact and fiction blend together brilliantly. While scholars have largely relegated Mamah to a footnote in the life of America’s greatest architect, author Nancy Horan gives full weight to their dramatic love story and illuminates Cheney’s profound influence on Wright. Drawing on years of research, Horan weaves little-known facts into a compelling narrative, vividly portraying the conflicts and struggles of a woman forced to choose between the roles of mother, wife, lover, and intellectual. Horan’s Mamah is a woman seeking to find her own place, her own creative calling in the world. Mamah’s is an unforgettable journey marked by choices that reshape her notions of love and responsibility, leading inexorably ultimately lead to this novel’s stunning conclusion. Elegantly written and remarkably rich in detail, Loving Frank is a fitting tribute to a courageous woman, a national icon, and their timeless love story. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Nancy Horan's Under the Wide and Starry Sky. Advance praise for Loving Frank: “Loving Frank is one of those novels that takes over your life. It’s mesmerizing and fascinating–filled with complex characters, deep passions, tactile descriptions of astonishing architecture, and the colorful immediacy of daily life a hundred years ago–all gathered into a story that unfolds with riveting urgency.” –Lauren Belfer, author of City of Light “This graceful, assured first novel tells the remarkable story of the long-lived affair between Frank Lloyd Wright, a passionate and impossible figure, and Mamah Cheney, a married woman whom Wright beguiled and led beyond the restraint of convention. It is engrossing, provocative reading.” ——Scott Turow “It takes great courage to write a novel about historical people, and in particular to give voice to someone as mythic as Frank Lloyd Wright. This beautifully written novel about Mamah Cheney and Frank Lloyd Wright’s love affair is vivid and intelligent, unsentimental and compassionate.” ——Jane Hamilton “I admire this novel, adore this novel, for so many reasons: The intelligence and lyricism of the prose. The attention to period detail. The epic proportions of this most fascinating love story. Mamah Cheney has been in my head and heart and soul since reading this book; I doubt she’ ll ever leave.” –Elizabeth Berg

Blood Water Paint

Blood Water Paint
Author: Joy McCullough
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2018-03-06
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0735232121

"Haunting ... teems with raw emotion, and McCullough deftly captures the experience of learning to behave in a male-driven society and then breaking outside of it."—The New Yorker "I will be haunted and empowered by Artemisia Gentileschi's story for the rest of my life."—Amanda Lovelace, bestselling author of the princess saves herself in this one A William C. Morris Debut Award Finalist 2018 National Book Award Longlist Her mother died when she was twelve, and suddenly Artemisia Gentileschi had a stark choice: a life as a nun in a convent or a life grinding pigment for her father's paint. She chose paint. By the time she was seventeen, Artemisia did more than grind pigment. She was one of Rome's most talented painters, even if no one knew her name. But Rome in 1610 was a city where men took what they wanted from women, and in the aftermath of rape Artemisia faced another terrible choice: a life of silence or a life of truth, no matter the cost. He will not consume my every thought. I am a painter. I will paint. Joy McCullough's bold novel in verse is a portrait of an artist as a young woman, filled with the soaring highs of creative inspiration and the devastating setbacks of a system built to break her. McCullough weaves Artemisia's heartbreaking story with the stories of the ancient heroines, Susanna and Judith, who become not only the subjects of two of Artemisia's most famous paintings but sources of strength as she battles to paint a woman's timeless truth in the face of unspeakable and all-too-familiar violence. I will show you what a woman can do. ★"A captivating and impressive."—Booklist, starred review ★"Belongs on every YA shelf."—SLJ, starred review ★"Haunting."—Publishers Weekly, starred review ★"Luminous."—Shelf Awareness, starred review

If He Had Been with Me

If He Had Been with Me
Author: Laura Nowlin
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2013-04-02
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1402277849

If he had been with me everything would have been different... I wasn't with Finn on that August night. But I should've been. It was raining, of course. And he and Sylvie were arguing as he drove down the slick road. No one ever says what they were arguing about. Other people think it's not important. They do not know there is another story. The story that lurks between the facts. What they do not know—the cause of the argument—is crucial. So let me tell you...

Girl in Pieces

Girl in Pieces
Author: Kathleen Glasgow
Publisher: Ember
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2018-04-10
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1101934743

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "A haunting, beautiful, and necessary book."—Nicola Yoon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Everything, Everything Charlotte Davis is in pieces. At seventeen she’s already lost more than most people do in a lifetime. But she’s learned how to forget. The broken glass washes away the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. You don’t have to think about your father and the river. Your best friend, who is gone forever. Or your mother, who has nothing left to give you. Every new scar hardens Charlie’s heart just a little more, yet it still hurts so much. It hurts enough to not care anymore, which is sometimes what has to happen before you can find your way back from the edge. A deeply moving portrait of a girl in a world that owes her nothing, and has taken so much, and the journey she undergoes to put herself back together. Kathleen Glasgow's debut is heartbreakingly real and unflinchingly honest. It’s a story you won’t be able to look away from. And don’t miss Kathleen Glasgow's novels You’d Be Home Now and How to Make Friends with the Dark, both raw and powerful stories of life.

Daughters of War

Daughters of War
Author: Lizzie Page
Publisher: Forever
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2021-12-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781538754542

USA Today bestselling author Lizzie Page delivers a gripping historical drama about a mother fighting for her daughters and her country in the midst of a World War, perfect for fans of Natasha Lester and Shirley Dickson. As a teenager in Chicago, May always dreamed of traveling the world. So when she falls in love with George Turner, she can't wait to return to London as his wife. Two beautiful daughters follow, but George isn't the husband he promised to be. Ten years on, May is wondering if she's made a terrible mistake. The Great War has been declared in Europe, and all around, brave young men are being called up to serve. George, banned from conscription himself, has taken to the bottle, and May suspects he's seeing other women too. He even sends her beloved daughters away to school. She misses them terribly every day. But then May meets veteran nurse Elsie, who persuades her to join the war effort. May knows nothing of nursing -- it will be difficult, dangerous work, but her heart is telling her it's the right thing to do and the only way to carve out a life for herself and her daughters away from George. But when George does the unthinkable, May's children are put at risk. Miles away on the front line and unable to reach them, will May be reunited with her little girls before it's too late?

Before We Were Yours

Before We Were Yours
Author: Lisa Wingate
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2017-06-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0425284697

THE BLOCKBUSTER HIT—Over two million copies sold! A New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller “Poignant, engrossing.”—People • “Lisa Wingate takes an almost unthinkable chapter in our nation’s history and weaves a tale of enduring power.”—Paula McLain Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty. Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption. Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong. Publishers Weekly’s #3 Longest-Running Bestseller of 2017 • Winner of the Southern Book Prize • If All Arkansas Read the Same Book Selection This edition includes a new essay by the author about shantyboat life.

A Place of Greater Safety

A Place of Greater Safety
Author: Hilary Mantel
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
Total Pages: 770
Release: 2006-11-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 142992280X

The story of three young provincials of no great heritage who together helped to destroy a way of life and, in the process, destroyed themselves: Camille Desmoulins, bisexual and beautiful, charming, erratic, untrustworthy; Georges Jacques Danton, hugely but erotically ugly, a brilliant pragmatist who knew how to seize power and use it; and Maximilien Robespierre, "the rabid lamb," who would send his dearest friend to the guillotine. Each, none older than thirty-four, would die by the hand of the very revolution he had helped to bring into being.