Ruby

A heart-tugging read - Yours

Heartwarming - My Weekly

You won't be able to put this down until you have read every word - No. 1

One of the country's most popular storytellers - Scottish Daily Record

When sixteen-year-old Sally is evacuated to the English south coast, she is terrified by what lies ahead of her. All she knows are the sights and sounds of London's East End - but Sally swallows her tears as they leave the familiar landmarks behind, knowing that she has to be a Grown-Up Girl and play mother to her six-year-old brother Ernie. Playing mother is nothing new for Sally - their real mother Florrie, a good-time girl, hasn't even come to the station to wave them off and Ernie, crippled at an early age by polio, is used to depending on his older sister.

When they arrive in Cliffehaven, they're taken to live at the Beach View Boarding House where they're welcomed by the open-hearted Reilly family headed up by warm, loving Peggy, and life begins to improve. Sally gets a job in a uniforms factory to help pay her way - and to pay for Ernie's expensive medicines - but then Florrie arrives in Cliffehaven, bringing disaster with her. And Sally is forced to work out where her true loyalties lie ...

February 1941. Julie Harris is working in London's East End as a midwife when a bombing raid destroys her family and the house she grew up in. All she has left is her motherless baby nephew William.

Determined to uphold her promise to her sister to keep William safe until his father, Bill, returns from the war, she accepts a post as a midwife in Cliffehaven on the south-coast of England. Here they are taken under the wing of the Reilly family at the Beach View boarding house.

But all too soon Julie learns that Bill is 'missing in action' and William falls dangerously ill. As she begins the long vigil by William's beside, she fears she will lose the little boy she has grown to love as her own.

Scarborough, 1880

Jeannie spends her days watching the harbour girls - mending nets, gutting herring - and waiting for Ethan Wharton to come in on his father's fishing smack. Jeannie had always expected to marry the loyal and dependable Ethan. But then she meets Harry - a stranger who has come to visit from Hull for the day - and she falls for him.

When Jeannie finds herself pregnant and Harry breaks his promise to come back for her, she finds herself isolated. She and her child move to Hull where her life is touched by illness, tragedy and poverty. She longs for the simpler times of her past, and wonders if she will ever find someone who will truly love her - and if Ethan will ever forgive her...