Under the Almond Trees is the story of three ordinary women in California who lived extraordinary lives.
It starts with a falling tree branch that kills Ellen VanValkenburgh’s husband in 1862, forcing her to assume leadership of his paper mill, something women weren’t allowed to do. Women weren’t allowed to vote yet, either. Ellen decided that had to change, and became a suffragette.
In 1901, Emily Williams, Ellen’s daughter-in-law, became an architect – very much against her family’s wishes. No one would hire a woman, but Emily would not be deterred. She and her life partner Lillian set out to build homes themselves.
By the 1930’s women enjoyed more freedom, including the vote. Even so, Ellen’s granddaughter Eva VanValkenburgh chose a traditional life of marriage and children, even closing her photography business at her husband’s insistence. When he later refused to pay for their daughter’s college education, Eva followed the example of her Aunt Emily and reopened her photography business.

The spirit of aloha is found in Hawaii’s fresh ocean air, the flowers, the trade winds . . . the natural beauty that smooth the struggles of daily life. In 1922 Honolulu, unhappy in the adoptive family that’s raised her, Dolores begins to search for that spirit early on—and she begins by running away at sixteen to live with her newlywed friend Maria.

Trying to find her own love, Dolores marries a young Portuguese man named Manolo His large family embraces her, but when his drinking leads to physical abuse, only his relative Alberto comes to her rescue—and sparks a passion within Dolores that she hasn’t known before. Staunch Catholics can’t divorce, however; so, after the Pearl Harbor attack, Dolores flees with her two daughters to California, only to be followed by both Manolo and Alberto. In California, Manolo’s drinking problems continue—and Alberto’s begin. Outraged that yet another man in her life is turning to the bottle for answers, Dolores starts to doubt her feelings for Alberto. Is he only going to disappoint her, as Manolo has? Or is Alberto the embodiment of the aloha spirit she’s been seeking?

Set against the Russian Revolution of 1905, a prelude to that of 1917, this novel explores the complexity of relationships and motivations that lead to acts of rebellion.

Tsarist Russia, 1904: a time of war, shortages, and popular unrest. Anna enrols at university and is befriended by twins, Rosa and Boris, who draw her into the revolutionary movement. As Anna finds new purpose to her life and falls in love, the violent struggle against the Tsar escalates. On 9 January 1905, a workers' protest is massacred by Tsarist soldiers, with tragic results for the three friends. Now Anna must continue the revolutionary struggle, knowing that to do so will mean sacrificing everything she holds dear.

The novel reflects the reality of the Russian and other revolutions where women played a full part.

"The real terrorist women of Russia were, above all, individuals who were motivated by a deep sense of the political and economic injustice of the Tsarist autocracy. They were driven to commit acts of terror by the lack of legitimate routes for political campaigning and by the violence perpetrated by the regime itself against those who tried to protest. Some were rich and some were poor. Most were educated. Some were wives; a few were mothers. What defined them, however, was their common cause with their male colleagues and their shared use of terrorism to further their political aims. Each made a rational choice to commit her act of violence."

Uplifting and heartwarming: drama, courage and romance at Marlow’s department store this Christmas
For Lily Collins and her fellow shop girls at Marlow’s Department store, another Christmas with ration books, shortages of goods and staff – not to mention a store coping with war damage – will be a real challenge.

But the girls rally round and put their worries aside to make this, the hardest wartime Christmas yet, one that their families, and their town, will never forget.

The new book in the heart-warming WW2 family saga series! ‘Just the balm our souls need right now’ Women’s Weekly
Summer 1942. Despite grim reports on the wireless and rationing hitting hard, Lily Collins and her fellow shop girls from Marlow’s department store are determined to put out the bunting for a family party.

But Beryl’s husband Les returns from North Africa a changed man, and Gladys worries for her own fiancé’s safety. The store is losing staff to the war effort and Lily’s young man, Jim, is torn over where his duty lies.

Then comes the knock on the door that everyone dreads. Lily’s family, always the heart of her world, is rocked to the core. The small Midlands town – and Lily’s beloved Marlow’s – must face their greatest challenge yet.

War brings changes three friends could never foresee…
‘Highly recommended’ Anna Jacobs
‘A warm domestic drama’ People’s Friend

It’s 1942 and as shortages of staff – and goods – begin to bite, young Lily Collins is nervously stepping up to sales junior at Marlow’s department store.

Bombs are still falling and Lily and fellow shop girls Gladys and Beryl need a stiff upper lip to wave boyfriends, husbands and brothers goodbye, especially with a baby on the way and grim news on the wireless. Jim, who works with Lily at the store, seems restless, and nothing can prepare Lily for the secrets that come tumbling out when her favourite brother comes home on leave…

Somehow, she must keep smiling through. Community, family and friends rally round as her home town – and the whole country – is tested once again.

Not even the Blitz will stop the shop girls…The perfect, uplifting book to curl up with this spring
‘Such a good read!’ 5* Goodreads reviewer
It’s 1941 and as the air raid sirens blare, Lily Collins is starting work in Midlands department store Marlow’s. She learns the ropes from her sophisticated boss Miss Frobisher alongside shy fellow junior Gladys. But her friendship with young salesman Jim draws her into a swirl of secrets. And with the war progressing to crisis point, Cedric Marlow and his staff must battle nightly bombings and the absence of loved ones to keep going.

A Store at War weaves together a strong sense of community with a vivid evocation of a time when every man, woman and child was doing their bit.

In 1963 Joe Kaufmann is a Jewish doctoral student in history at Indiana University. He is unwittingly dragged into a waking nightmare when he befriends freshman music major Robert Stangarden. At the end of the school year, Joe helps Robert move back to his home in Indianapolis. However, he comes face-to-face with Robert’s parents, Henry and Ada Stangarden, whom he recognizes as Nazi civilians who had worked at the Buchenwald concentration camp where he and his parents had been prisoners in 1944. In mind-numbing shock, Joe descends into a deep depression as he relives those awful childhood memories of seeing unimaginable cruelty and barbarity and losing his parents. He attempts suicide but survives. He then retreats to his home in Ithaca, New York, to put 700 miles between himself and this wicked Nazi civilian and his kind but defeated wife.
However, this is not the end of Joe’s contact with the Stangardens. When fall semester at I. U. approaches, Robert is eager to go back. But Henry must keep Robert away from Joe. He cannot risk exposing his sinister past if the two young men meet again, and Robert learns who his parents really are. So, during their argument, Henry viciously beats Robert, almost killing him. Robert’s mother, Ada, helplessly witnesses the assault in their living room. Because she fears her husband, she takes Robert by taxi to the hospital and abandons him. Later, despite Robert’s subsequent insistence that he and his father just had a “discussion,” wanting just to get back to a normal family life, Henry is arrested for the near-murder of his own son. While the lawyers prepare for trial, tensions build as both Joe and the Stangardens desperately try to hide their toxic past relationship when they are interviewed. Joe is the lynchpin to this whole nasty affair, and he wants no involvement. He fears this Nazi thug will come after him sooner or later. To his utter surprise, Henry Stangarden is convicted of attempted voluntary manslaughter.
Joe is relieved, believing he can move on with his life. But long-buried secrets from Buchenwald remain. Henry’s wife, Ada, knows what happened at Buchenwald. Unable to hold her silence, she reveals the true story of Joe Kaufmann and her only son, Robert. The black cloud of depression and suicidal thoughts appear once again. And Robert’s self-identity is in question.
One family is shattered; another is created out of the embers of a Nazi concentration camp.

An American army doctor, Major Grayson Pierce, finds a little boy hiding in a stench-filled barrack at the Buchenwald concentration camp in April 1945. A devout Catholic, Pierce realizes that God is allowing him to save one precious life among the ubiquitous piles of naked corpses in this notorious Nazi slave labor camp. After the war, the doctor, a widower, brings Joe to his home in Ithaca, New York, and becomes his guardian. At the Pierce mansion, Joe struggles with his nightmares of Buchenwald and with three old women who see him as an intrusion--Grayson’s “fire-breathing” mother, Nina Cassandra, his “drill sergeant” older sister, Mildred, and a benign but indifferent Aunt Elvie. Making things worse is Grayson's eight-year-old insolent daughter, Irene, who refuses to accept Joe as her new "brother."
Grayson nearly comes to blows with his mother and sister when he chooses to rear his ward as a Jew while they insist that the boy must be converted to Catholicism. To escape the family "pressure cooker," Grayson and Joe take a two-week excursion around New York State. Joe learns English and bonds with his guardian in trust and love. Back at the mansion, he is better prepared to deal with the old women, but the bitter fight over his soul continues for the next several months, coming to an acrimonious conclusion at Christmastime.

Book of the Year, Historical Fantasy 2020, The Coffee Pot Book Club Historical Fiction Awards
How many secrets can one family have? For 13 years, Sorley has taught music alongside the man he loves, war and betrayal nearly forgotten. But behind their calm and ordered life, there are hidden truths. When a young girl’s question demands an answer, does he break the most important oath he has ever sworn by lying – or tell the truth, risking the destruction of both his family and a fragile political alliance? Empire’s Reckoning asks if love – of country, of an individual, of family – can be enough to leave behind the expectations of history and culture, and to chart a way to peace.

A reprieve from death. A city of legend. And a gamble to save everything – and everyone – Lena loves.

Exiled for treason, Lena has few chances of survival in the mountains she must cross. Her companion is of little help. But the fabled city of Casil may lay somewhere to the east – and reaching it is their last, desperate hope for help against the enemy who is overrunning their lands. But does the Eastern Empire still exist – and if it does, will it come to the help of its long-forgotten province?

An Emperor's request. A lover's refusal. And a young woman who must choose between them.

Many generations past, the great empire from the east left Lena's country to its own defences. Now invasion threatens...and to save their land, women must learn the skills of war. But in a world reminiscent of Britain after the fall of Rome, only men fight; women farm and fish. Lena's choice to answer her leader's call to arms separates her from her lover Maya, beginning her journey of exploration: a journey of body, mind and heart.

Winner of multiple awards, both individually and as part of the first Empire's Legacy trilogy, Empire's Daughter is neither magical fantasy nor historical fiction, but a unique world both familiar and unfamiliar - an empire on the edge of history.