Audrey Howard's novels are characterized by their focus on resilient women navigating societal expectations and personal challenges. She possesses a gift for crafting immersive atmospheres, drawing readers into the distinct periods her stories inhabit. Her narratives delve into universal themes of love, loss, and the enduring strength of the human spirit. Through her compelling prose, Howard offers profound insights into the lives of women across different historical landscapes.
Lally Fraser, widowed at 20, seeks comfort with dashing young millowner Roly Sinclair. When she finds she is expecting his baby, she turns to his dour brother Harry. Secretly in love with her, Harry offers her marriage. Roly, though, is anything but pleased. Threatening scandal or worse, he sets out to destroy them both.
An Unforgettable Story of a Star-Crossed Marriage, Set amid the Lake District's Fells
When Lucy Dean - eighteen, with no money - marries James Buchanan - a man of thirty-four with a great fortune -it is anything but a happy match. For James is hopelessly in love with his wife while Lucy - too young, too serious and too determined to sacrifice happiness to duty - doesn't know what love means.
When Lily Elliott's father dies she loses everything - not just a beloved protector and his wonderful ship the Lily-Jane, but also the way of life she has always known. As her mother sinks into a dream-world and the money which had always seemed sufficient turns out to have been mostly debts, Lily watches, bewildered, as destitution comes ever closer for the Elliott women and their loyal housekeeper. Then two rescuers appear. One is the most unlikely saviour: Liam O'Connor, a poor seaman who selflessly befriends the unhappy little girl. The other is Joshua Crowther, the wealthy owner of Oakwood Place, a grand country mansion where the desperate women finally find refuge.
Nancy Brody is different from the rest of the folk in Angel Meadow, the appalling slum where her drunken mother Kitty was a prostitute . . . Only nine years old, Nancy decides to save her sisters Mary and Rose from the workhouse. She gets work for them all at the Monarch Cotton Manufacturing Mill - and then sets out to better herself and her sisters. Saving every penny, working every waking hour, Nancy succeeds, becoming a manufacturer herself. But happiness seems as elusive for Nancy as it was when she was a mistreated child. Though he once said he loved her, Mick O'Rourke has become Nancy's worst enemy, and seems destined to take a terrible revenge on her and her sisters. And Josh Hayes, the man who truly loves Nancy, seems destined to be parted from her.
When Abby Murphy discovers she's heiress to one of St. Helens' largest glass works, her whole life is turned upside down. Torn from her poverty-stricken family and forbidden to see her childhood sweetheart, Roddy Baxter, she is forced by her tyrannical grandfather to become a lady. Then Roddy disappears and soon, it seems inevitable that Abby will have to marry her grandfather's chosen successor. Trapped in a marriage where she is little more than a possession, Abby is determined that no matter what else might change, nothing will stand in the way of her steadfast passion for Roddy. But is she prepared to give up everything she has now for a love from the past?
Set in the 1840s in the Lancashire coalfields, this is the story of two women who love the same man. Heiress Nella Fielden sets her heart on Jonas Townley and marries him, but his heart belongs to Nella's protegee Leah, a lowly miner's daughter. Tragedy follows when Nella learns she has a rival.
The heroine is Annie Abbott, daughter and only child of a poverty-stricken hill farmer and his downtrodden wife, who runs away with a theatrical group at the age of 15. Annie returns to Browhead, the beautiful lonely hill farm above Bassenthwaite Lake, with only her pride and her baby daughter to sustain her. Her parents are dead, her old friends dare not be seen with an unmarried mother and the other farmers will lnot help a woman who presumes to buy sheep and raise crops without a husband at her side. Except for one man. Reed Macaulay, son of the district's most prosperous landowner, knows that Annie is the only woman he will ever love. Secretly, he helps her any way he can. Secretly, because Reed has promised to marry another woman . . . 'Her thousands of fans recognise the artistry of a true storyteller' Lancashire Life
Set in Lancashire in the 19th century, this is the story of a woman whose life becomes a search for revenge against the rich landowner who helped ruin her childhood. The author also wrote The Skylark's Song, The Morning Tide, The Juniper Bush, The Mallow Years and Shining Threads.
Liverpool saga set in the early years of 20th century.
Zoe was born in the poorest street in Liverpool. As the youngest of five children her life in Merseyside slum meant brutality, degration and appaling poverty. But Zoe was bright, sensitive and determined to escape. Freedom would bring her wealth, luxury and love - and heartache she could never have imagined...
Vibrant and headstrong, Ally Pearce loves working on the Edith, her family's narrowboat, proving she's the equal of any man on the Leeds to Liverpool canal. Betsy, delicate, calculating and sensuously beautiful, wants only to become a 'lady' - and will use the most unladylike means to become one. When Dr Tom Hartley enters the sisters' lives after a tragic accident both are attracted to him - but for very different reasons...
Liverpool, 1921. It was the year lively Kate Fowler rebelled against working in her hated father's chip shop and, with her gentle sister Jenny, left his brutal house forever. For this was the Jazz Age - and Kate and Jenny revelled in their freedom and in dancing until dawn, until romance changed the tempo of their lives. For Kate, it was Charlie, a man as strong and warm-hearted as herself. For Jenny, it was Nils, the Norwegian navigator, who shared a brief, bittersweet affair with her before tragically disappearing from her life. And while Kate and Charlie together face the bad times that are coming, Jenny looks set to repeat the tragic pattern of her mother's life.
Her work is her life, until Sally Grimshaw's brother falls into the clutches of sinister Richard Keene. Sally is faced with a stark destitution or service to the odious Mr. Keene. And when all her attempts fail, she finds herself with nothing left but her stubborn pride. Then she finds an unexpected refuge...
Clare Hanrahan has nothing left to lose the day she stumbles into Lew Earnshaw's arms. Her family is gone and her own life hangs by a thread after a desperate season seeking work. By the time Lew and his kindly neighbours have nursed Clare back to health, he is hopelessly in love with the frail Irish girl. But though she will always care for Lew, another man comes between them. Martin Heywood could not be more different from the gentle, idealistic weaver. The rich young farmer is proud, arrogant and devastatingly handsome. He sweeps Clare off her feet, inspires her to better herself, steals her love away. What he cannot do is marry a mere servant girl. Even if it breaks both their hearts . . .
Beautiful, wilful and untameable, Kitty Hayes has only ever loved one man. From the moment she met him, she believed with all her heart that her adopted brother Freddy would one day be her husband. When he chooses to marry her pretty, feminine, despised sister instead, it breaks more than her heart. Torn between fury and sorrow, Kitty makes her own brilliant match. She doesn't love Ben Maddox - she scarcely notices him, even though he is fascinated by his headstrong bride. It is only when her selfishness leads to an unforgivable accident that she realizes what she has lost. And by then, it may be too late.
Briar Macauley's stubbornness to prove to the world that she is the equal to any man leads her into so many disastrous circumstances that her parents despair of ever making a lady of her. With the appearance of Hal Saunders, Briar exchanges her wild ways for a husband and child she would die for and becomes the model of a perfect wife. But when tragedy strikes, Briar must use all of her courage and determination just to endure.
Set against the background of World War I and two stately homes that became hospitals for the wounded, Softly Grow The Poppies is an epic saga of love and war.Rose Beechworth is mistress of a charming country house, left to her by her wealthy father. In the summer of 1914, her friend Alice Weatherly, a spoilt but lovable heiress, longs to kiss Captain Charlie Summers goodbye. When Rose accompanies Alice to Liverpool's Lime Street Station, she meets Charlie's brother Harry ... and falls head over heels in love.As the war takes its terrible toll, Alice becomes a wayward heroine, while Rose finds herself running not one but two great houses, and it seems impossible that any of them will ever find happiness again ...
Scottish shipowner Conal MacRae is the most exciting man that cossetted heiress Jenna Townley has ever met, and she is determined to marry him despite the disapproval of her overbearing father. Their courtship is fiery and their marriage passionate. But there are tragic and sinister undercurrents in their lives secrets from the past that threaten their happiness and even their safety. Is Jenna destined to repeat her mother's tragedy, or can she triumph over the past and keep both the Townley legacy and the man she was meant to love?
To Sir Robert Blenkinsopp, his frail, exquisite wife Amy is just another possession to be misused and discarded. Amy is overjoyed when the brute is found unconscious at the bottom of his own staircase, deprived of the power of speech and movement. With the help of the servants and a new companion, she makes the estate not only happier but richer as well. But Sir Robert Blenkinsopp is not dead. Imprisoned in the wreck of his body, his only companion a loathesome servant, he is plotting a vicious revenge on Amy, her children, and the man who has come to love her.
A young woman's quest for the family she lost ... The brilliant new saga from Audrey Howard.
Rose Alley is one of the city's worst slums - a place where hunger, filth and violence are a way of life. It's no place for proud Queenie Logan and her daughter Gillyflower. And it seems Queenie's dreams of escape will come true. Transformed by Miss Hunter's School for Girls, Gilly opens a successful dressmaking shop. And though she always thought she would marry the boy next door, soon she is courted by one of the richest young men in the city.But they have made a terrible enemy, who lurks in the Liverpool slums and seeks his chance to destroy them. And in the respectable new world they have joined someone else will prove even more dangerous to Gilly and those she loves.
