Other Novels Katie Flynn Collection

Orphans of the Storm



Jess and Nancy are nurses in France during the Great War. They have much in common for both have lost their lovers in the trenches, so when the war is over and they return to Liverpool, their future seems bleak.Very soon, however, their paths diverge. Nancy marries an Australian stockman and goes to live in the Outback, while Jess marries a Liverpudlian. Their lives couldn't be more different.When the Second World War is declared, Nancy's son Pete joins the Royal Air Force and comes to England, promising his mother that he will visit her old friend. In the thick of the May blitz, with half of Liverpool demolished and thousands dead, Pete arrives in the city to find Jess's home destroyed and her daughter, Debbie, missing. Pete decides that whatever the cost, he must find her...

 

Liverpool Taffy



Life is hard in 1930s Liverpool, and Biddy O'Shaughnessy is left destitute when her widowed mother dies. Forced to work all hours for Ma Kettle, owner of the local sweet shop, she can soon take no more and runs away. At first luck appears to be on her side. Sharing a flat with Ellen, an old school pal who has a special 'friend' paying the rent, keeps the wolf from the door. But fate conspires against them and Biddy finds herself homeless once more, living rough on the mean streets of Liverpool. When she applies for the post of maid with the Gallagher family, Biddy starts to feel she might at last be able to lead a normal life. Especially when she meets Dai, a young Welshman working the trawlers. But Nellie Gallagher has a secret that will change all their lives...

 

Strawberry Fields



Liverpool: Christmas Day 1924.

When twelve-year-old Sara Cordwainer, the unloved child of rich and fashionable parents, sees a ragged girl with a baby in her arms outside her church, she stops to talk to her, pressing her collection money into the girl's icy hand. But from this generous act comes a tragedy which will haunt her for years.

When, years later, Sara meets Brogan, a young Irishman working in England, she feels she has found a friend at last. But Brogan has a secret which he dare tell no one, not even Sara.

And in a Dublin slum, Brogan's little sister Polly is growing up. The only girl in a family of boys, she knows herself to be much loved, but it is not until Sara begins to work at the Salvation Army children's home, Strawberry Fields, that the two girls meet - and Brogan's secret is told at last...

 

The Cuckoo Child



A winning tale set in Liverpool in the 1920s: young Dot McCann is forced to run away from her aunt’s home when she overhears the incriminating conversation of two thieves. She tells no one until she meets Corky, another runaway and Alby, who owns a canal boat.

 

The Girl from Penny Lane



Young Kitty Drinkwater lives in Paradise Court, just off Burlington Street. Life is tough in Liverpool in the years after the First World War and Kitty is always hungry and dressed in rags. As the eldest child, she is the scapegoat for her feckless, drunken mother. She dreams of a better life...

Lilac Larkin's prospects, by contrast, are very different; she is beautiful, self-possessed young woman, and even when her pleasant job as a lady's maid comes to an end and she starts work in a bag factory, she is sure that her life will be full of promise and excitement...

So when the two girls meet by chance in a millinery shop, neither can have any idea what changes in their lives the encounter will bring nor how strangely fate will work to bring them together once more.

 

Sophie



She can hardly believe it’s happening…

Not so long ago Sophie had been the type of girl who could only make friends with people as lonely and friendless as herself.

And yet now, here she is with a London flat, a job in television and the kind of figure that is beginning to get her noticed. Particularly by Stephen, one of the directors.

But despite her newfound confidence, when things start to go wrong, Sophie can’t help wondering whether she’s lost a bit of herself along the way.

 

A Family Affair



It is 1900 and Adeline Warburton and Arnold Haslington have fallen deeply in love. But though both are from wealthy families, their social status is too far apart for their families to approve of the match. And when Arnold marries another, Adeline’s reaction is immediate and altogether unexpected, as she travels to make a new life in China.

But although they are separated by thousands of miles, the consequences of their youthful passion continue to haunt them and their children – Addy’s daughter Nala and Arnold’s son, Philip.
As the years pass, and the children grow, violent forces are set to bring them together, unaware of the secrets from the past that bind them.

 

A Summer Promise



1938: Maddy Hebditch has been living in poverty with her cantankerous grandmother since she was orphaned when she was just five, and it’s a constant struggle to stay out of the workhouse.

However, though life is hard, Maddy has her friends Alice, Marigold and Tom to help her. Together the four spend their summers exploring the Dales and making plans for the future.

Until war breaks out and everything changes.

As the four go their separate ways, Maddy joins the ATS, where she is recruited for one of the most dangerous jobs a woman could do in wartime: the Ack Ack sites.

All four face dangers as the war worsens, but when Tom is terribly injured, Maddy’s world falls apart...

 

All My Fortunes



‘Take care of Eva.’

These words are all that remain of Pavel Fedorovna’s former life, though she can no longer remember who said them. All she knows is that they marked the end of life as she knew it - and a new beginning in the Russian Caucasus.

Meanwhile on Deeside, young David Thomas's carefree existence is torn apart by a shipping tragedy which will colour his whole life.

A decade later David, now an engineer and working in Russia, meets the young Pavel, just as she is emerging into womanhood. But Russia in the 1930s is no place for young lovers and the story of their struggle to be together is a powerful tale of emotion, adventure, unbelievable hardship and ultimate triumph.

 

Forgotten Dreams



Lottie Lacey and her mother, Louella, share a house in Victoria Court with Mr Magic and his son Baz. Lottie is a child star, dancing and singing at the Gaiety Theatre to an enraptured audience, whilst Louella acts as Max Magic's assistant. But Lottie was in hospital for weeks after a road accident and has lost her memory. Louella tries to help but the white mist remains. Until Lottie meets a boy with golden-brown eyes who calls her "Sassy" and accuses her of running away.

It is after this meeting that the dreams start, dreams of another life, almost another world, and Lottie, sharing them with Baz, begins to believe he knows more than he chooses to tell. But then Merle joins the act and Lottie feels Baz and Merle, both older than she, are in league against her.

Then the dreams begin to grow clearer and Lottie realises she must find her past, at no matter what cost.

 

Poor Little Rich Girl



Liverpool, 1934. Hester Lowe agrees to act as governess to spoilt, self-willed, little Lonnie Hetherington-Smith when they leave India to live with Lonnie's elderly aunt in Shaw Street, Liverpool. Hester speedily realises that her new employer dislikes her niece and means to make life uncomfortable for both of them.

Things improve a little when they meet the poor, but happy, Bailey family who live in a court off Heyworth Street. Hester likes Dick Bailey very much, but her employer does not permit 'followers', whilst Lonnie and young Ben Bailey are deadly enemies.

Then, the regime in Shaw Street changes and Hester is forced to leave the comforts of a middle-class household to make her own way in what is, to her, a strange country...

Poor Little Rich Girl is sure to please the huge and growing fanbase of one of the most popular saga authors in the country, with more than two million books sold nationwide.

 

The Bad Penny

One wild night midwife Patty Peel is called to attend a birth on the opposite side of Liverpool. She pedals off into the storm and delivers a baby girl in a filthy slum dwelling, just as the mother dies. The drunk and violent father tells Patty to get rid of it, so she takes the child away, meaning to deliver it to the nearest orphanage. But Patty had spent her entire childhood in an institution, except for the frequent occasions when she ran away, and cannot bear to hand the baby over. She has no idea how the baby will affect the attitude of those around her…nor how her life will change as a result…

 

Down Daisy Street

Liverpool, 1935. Kathy Kelling is coming home to Daisy Street from her first day at the High School, longing to tell her friend, Jane, all about it. Then her brother, Billy, has a serious accident and Kathy's schooling is in jeopardy. The Kellings' life becomes a struggle; Billy needs constant attention so Mrs Kelling takes in lodgers since she's determined Kathy's schooling must not suffer.

Meanwhile, in Norfolk, young Alec Hewitt has problems of his own. A farmer's son, living within yards of the North Sea, one terrible night will change his life forever.

Then War comes and Alec and Kathy meet, but it's blonde and bubbly Jane to whom Alec is attracted...

 

First Love, Last Love

It wasn't a privileged childhood, but it was a happy one. Sybil and Lizzie Cream, brought up in a fisherman's cottage on the edge of the cold North Sea were content to leave privilege where it belonged: with their friends the Wintertons. Christina Winterton was the same age as Sybil and the two girls were inseparable, but it was Lizzie whom Ralph Winterton, three years older, found irresistible.

Then war came to East Anglia, and so did Manchester-born Fenn Kitzmann now of the American Army Air Force. At their first meeting he is attracted by Sybil's subtle charm, but before he sees her again her own personal tragedy has struck, and he finds her changed almost out of recognition...

 

Someone Special

On 21st April 1926, three baby girls are born. In North Wales, Hester Coburn, a farm labourer's wife, gives birth to Nell, whilst in Norwich, in an exclusive nursing home, Anna is born to rich and pampered Constance Radwell. And in London, Elizabeth, Duchess of York, has her first child, Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary.

The future looks straightforward for all three girls, yet before Nell is eight, she and Hester are forced to leave home, finding work with a travelling fair. Anna's happy security is threatened by her father's infidelities and her mother's jealousy, and the Princess's life is irrevocably altered by her uncle's abdication.

Set in the hills of Wales and the rolling Norfolk countryside, the story follows Nell and Anna through their wartime adolescence into young womanhood as they struggle to overcome their problems, whilst watching 'their' Princess move towards her great destiny. Only when they finally meet do the two girls understand that each of them is 'someone special'.

 

Jenny Alone

After the sudden and brutal breakdown of her marriage, Jenny finds herself alone for the first time in her life when she leaves the comfortable farmhouse with her four-year-old daughter.

Taking refuge in a seaside town in North Wales, Jenny finds a room in a boarding house. It's difficult at first, but as she gets to know her fellow residents, she gradually begins to see that life has much more to offer than she could ever have dreamed.

And when she meets Ben, the owner of the local coffee bar, she finally understands that she is far happier now, living on her own, than she ever was when she was married.

 

The Runaway

When Dana and Caitlin meet by chance on the ferry from Ireland, they tell each other that they are simply going to search for work, but they soon realise they have more than that in common.They are both in search of new lives in Liverpool, leaving their secrets behind in Ireland. But Dana is ambitious and resourceful, and when the opportunity comes to own their own tearoom she persuades her friend to join her.

No one is willing to rent property to a couple of girls, however, especially during the Depression. So when Caitlin's new man friend says he'll back them, they are delighted and soon the tearoom is thriving.

Then fate intervenes, and soon the girls find themselves fighting to survive in a world on the brink of war.

 

Harbour Hill

In the Norfolk town of Haisby, Harbour Hill climbs from the harbour to the cliff-top - a road of run-down grandeur, its mansions now bedsits and guest houses.

It is here that two girls take a flat in the mouse-ridden premises owned by Gilbert the Grope. Nicola tries to forget the past and learn independence, whilst Ceri meets Tom, but how can anyone love a man who laughs at everything, including her?

Harbour Hill is the compelling story of the dramatic events which change – and enrich – their lives.

 

A Christmas Candle

1939. All over Britain children are being evacuated. Eve Armstrong and her little brother are headed for Devon, where the Armstrong parents will do their bit in nearby Plymouth. Pulling out of London Eve takes a last look at the crowded platform, the shabbily dressed evacuees, and a rude little boy sticking his tongue out. She’s looking forward to a change of scene.

And at first, surrounded by countryside, animals and new pals, Eve is happier than ever at Drake’s Farm. Not even her daily chores dampen her spirits. It’s a different world that invites fresh starts, and so when Eve runs into the boy from the station, Johnny Durrell, they call a truce and soon become firm friends.

At first the war seems a distant reality, but when new evacuee Connie Hale arrives from Liverpool every day becomes a battle. Connie is lazy, stuck up and spiteful – and Johnny’s new best friend. As the conflict grows and Eve with it, will she fight for Johnny or concede defeat?

 

An Orphan's Christmas

Liverpool, 1936. Molly Penelope Hardwick has been abandoned in Haisborough Orphanage. Desperate to discover her background, she befriends another orphan, Lenny Smith. Together they sneak out to roam the city of Liverpool, and hatch plans for their escape.

But when Molly is forced to leave the orphanage, Lenny has no idea where she’s gone. And when war is declared, he soon forgets about his childhood best pal to focus on his posting with the RAF in Scrimpton.

What Lenny doesn’t know is that Molly is desperate to join the war effort, and with her sights set on joining the WAAF, chances are they will see each other again.

But will things ever be the same after all this time?