BOOKMARK BOOK OF THE YEAR 20251919, Paris. As the guns fall silent, The Paris Peacemakers follows those attempting to start afresh while the fabric of Europe is stitched together for good or ill.Stella Rutherford, desperate to staunch her grief, has thrown herself into her work at the International Peace Conference, while the crucial negotiations play out. Her sister Corran is also headed to France where the wounds of war are still fresh for many, including...

Christina Keith came from the small town of Thurso on the far north coast of Scotland. Highly intelligent and ambitious, she became a lecturer in Classics at a time when that was still a brave and unusual choice for a woman. Towards the end of the First World War she left behind the sheltered world of academia to live and work among soldiers of all social backgrounds as a lecturer with the Army's education scheme in France. She writes with warmth and humour of her experien...

'A captivating blend of fact and fiction. This fascinating story transports the reader back in time' People's FriendTransatlantic flight fever grips the globe.The Honourable Miss Elsie Mackay, glamorous ex-film star turned bold aviator, sets her sights on becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. Her friend Stella Campbell once felt at the heart of world events, but post-war hopes are frayed and marriage and mot...

Flight fever is running rampant and daring flyers are all anyone can talk about. And now the Honourable Miss Elsie Mackay, glamorous former film star and regular name in gossip columns, has a new ambition - to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic. Stella Campbell was once at the heart of world events. Working at the Paris Peace Conference, she helped forge peace across Europe. Now a decade on, post-war hopes are frayed, and marriage and motherhood have worn away Stella...

As the fragile negotiations of the international Peace Conference get underway, typist Stella Rutherford throws herself into her work and the mixture of glamour and devastation the City of Light reveals. Anything to escape the grief coming in waves for her beloved brother Jack. Her sister Corran is about to put her academic career to use among the troops in France, a chance to see what the experience was like for countless men, including her fiancé Rob. Rob Campbell, profoundly changed by ...

THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THE BBC DRAMA THE CRIMSON FIELD'On the face of it,' writes Lyn Macdonald, 'no one could have been less equipped for the job than these gently nurtured girls who walked straight out of Edwardian drawing rooms into the manifest horrors of the First World War ...'Yet the volunteer nurses rose magnificently to the occasion. In leaking tents and draughty huts they fought another war, a war against agony and death, as men lay suffe...

Australian Heroines of World War One tells the story of eight courageous women through diaries, letters, original photos, paintings and specially drawn maps. These women had the courage and strength for which the Anzacs are renowned and the compassion and tenderness that only a woman can bring.Sister Hilda Samsing from Melbourne became a whistleblower when nursing aboard the hospital ship Gascon, outraged by the bungled evacuation of wounded Anzacs. She defied censorship and kept a...

One of the crucial factors which kept Tommy going on the Western Front was his facility to see what was comic in the horror, deprivation and discomfort of trench warfare, an attitude which blossomed further in the rest areas behind the lines. The nature of the comedy ranged from gentle irony to a rougher hilarity that produced on belly laughs. Such laughter could arise from extreme physical pain and discomfort, from the provision of sustenance and from matters relating to ...

"Goodbye to All That" is a powerful memoir written by Robert Graves, reflecting on his experiences during World War I. The book offers a candid and deeply personal account of the horrors of war and the impact it had on his life. Graves, a British soldier, provides readers with a vivid portrayal of the brutality and chaos of the battlefield. He shares his journey from a young man eager to serve his country to a disillusioned veteran grappling with the aftermath of conflict. The memoir begin...

The poignant and powerful second novel from the bestselling author of Custard Tarts and Broken Hearts.London, 1923.Bermondsey is the larder of London with its bustling docks, spice mill, tannery and factories.Milly Colman knows she's lucky. Working at Southwell's jam factory all week means she can have a pay packet and a laugh with her mates come Saturday. It's a welc...

Rosie the Riveter meets A League of Their Own in New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini’s lively and illuminating novel of the British home front about the “munitionettes” who built bombs in Britain’s arsenals during World War I, risking their lives for the war effort and discovering camaraderie and courage on the football pitch.Early in the Great War, men left Britain’s factories in droves to enlist. Struggling to keep up production, arsenals hired women to...

This fascinating collection of letters traces the exchanges between a young subaltern on the front, Gerard ‘Ged’ Garvin, and his mother and father at home. Correspondence was eagerly awaited by all. Ged savored letters home like ‘Jim Hawkins trickling the doubloons through his fingers’. Equally, his mother and father at home were always fearful that each letter they received would be the last. In a letter J. L. Garvin sent to his son 21 July 1916 he wrote: ‘Of course there’s no fresh lette...