Margaret Forster Book order (chronological)

The narrative unfolds through the edited diary of Millicent King, a woman born in 1901, capturing her experiences from the eve of the Great War through the tumultuous events of the twentieth century. Her journey takes readers from bohemian London to 1920s Rome, encompassing her social work and wartime efforts as she drives ambulances during the London bombings. This poignant blend of fiction and reality offers a richly textured portrayal of an ordinary woman's life against the backdrop of significant historical upheavals.

The story of a woman who helped mould the famous Winston Churchill

‘I was born on 25th May, 1938, in the front bedroom of a house in Orton Road, a house on the outer edges of Raffles, a council estate. I was a lucky girl.’ So begins Margaret Forster’s journey through the houses she’s lived in, from that sparkling new council house, to her beloved London home of today. This is not a book about bricks and mortar though. This is a book about what houses are to us, the effect they have on the way we live our lives and the changing nature of our homes: from blacking grates and outside privies; to cities dominated by bedsits and lodgings; to the houses of today converted back into single dwellings. Finally, it is a gently insistent, personal inquiry into the meaning of home.

Only one person knows what happened that day... Julia was the only person who knew what happened that day. But she didn't tell the police. And then it was too late. Now, years later, her secret looms large. Is it really too late? And if she does tell, can she bear the consequences?

The curiously named Isamay, a would-be academic, is trying to write a coherent thesis about grandmothers in history - from Sarah Bernhardt and George Sand to the matriarchal Queen Victoria and other influential grannies -- while constantly ambushed by the secrets her own family has been keeping. An only child, she is named after her grandmothers, Isa and May, who were there at her birth and who have formed and influenced her in very different ways. Jealous of each other, they both want to be first in their granddaughter's affections. Isa has an edge, in that young Isamay looks like her, but Isa's reserved and elegant exterior hides startling surprises that could undermine her granddaughter's certainties. May, on the other hand, is plump, indomitable and opinionated, and it's from her thatIsamay inherits her stubborn determination. Isamay, almost thirty, has never wanted children, but suddenly considers changing her mind. Her live-in lover, Ian (always mysterious about his own family history) is sure that he does not want a child.Engrossing, set in the present but with hooks into the past, this is an unusual story about grandmothers and their potentially powerful role in family life, about nature vs nurture, bloodlines and bridges across generations.

'These were the nights when the German bombers growled through the sky, their bellies full with steel and cordite. When the moon was low their dark shapes and still darker shadows came over the coast. On one of those nights it all began for me - war, after all, starts many things, and even though I wasn't born for another twenty-five years, my story began there.' It is May 1945 and as church bells ring out Victory in Europe over the Norfolk saltmarshes, Goose's daughter Lil is born. But as Lil enters Goose's world, her father leaves it, in a makeshift boat bound - or so the story goes - for Germany, his home. Forty years later it is Lil's son, Pip, who begins to make sense of his family's fragmented history. Who was his grandfather, who fell from the sky into Goose's life and then disappeared as suddenly as he came? What was the truth of his mother, Lil, who lived and lost her way between the creeks and the samphire? And what does it all mean for Pip?

Eben waren sie noch zu zweit – die Zwillingsschwestern Molly und Miranda. Als die 18jährige Miranda bei einem Segeltörn ums Leben kommt, lässt sie ihre Familie in Trauer und Ungewissheit zurück. Ihr Vater Don kann einfach nicht glauben, dass es keinen Schuldigen für diese Tragödie gibt. Während seine Frau Lou ihren eigenen Weg zwischen Verzweifelung und Trauer sucht, entfernt er sich immer weiter von seiner Familie.

A classic Margaret Forster novel with the same satisfying appeal as her bestselling Diary of an Ordinary Woman — the story of an actual early 20th century painting and its fictional adventures through the century and of the women whose lives it touches.From the Hardcover edition.

Mit diesem fiktiven Tagebuch der Millicent King, die als Dreizehnjährige 1914 in London ein Tagebuch beginnt und bis 1995 fortführt, ist Margaret Forster ein großartiger Roman gelungen: die Geschichte einer Frau des 20. Jahrhunderts. In England wurde das Buch mittlerweile in 100 000 Ex. verkauft.

On the eve of the Great War, Millicent King begins to keep her journal and records the dramas of everyday life in a family touched by war, tragedy, and money troubles. This title presents the 'edited' diary of this woman, born in 1901, whose life spans the twentieth century.