Titoli in Saghe

Penelope Wilton narrates BBC Radio 4’s epic dramatisation of the treasured family saga Elizabeth Jane Howard’s five book chronicle of the upper-middle class. Cazalet family begins in 1938, as siblings Hugh, Edward, Rupert and Rachel join together for another family holiday at Home Place, their house in the Sussex countryside. During the course of The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion, Casting Off and All Change, the progress of their lives, and those of their children, will be charted.

Cathie Kinrade is all too used to hardship. Growing up in a fishing community on the Isle of Man in the 1930s, she sees her dad and brothers set sail daily on dangerous seas while her mam struggles to put food on the table. Cathie has little hope of better for her own future until a chance encounter gives her the opportunity to change her fortune for ever. Fiercely determined, Cathie leaves behind home and family for Liverpool, a bustling, modern city full of possibility.

The compelling new Second World War novel from the author of Always in My Heart. In defending herself against her brutal husband, eighteen-year-old Ruby Clark is forced to flee London. She has no idea where Cliffehaven is, or what she will find there, but she knows that she will never be able to return home again. At first it seems she’s fallen on her feet. She gets a job at the local armaments factory, and the couple she is billeted with are kind and supportive.

When Kate Swan's overbearing father demands that she obey him by marrying a man she despises, she refuses and is cast out of her comfortable home in Whitby. Fortunately, a kindly local widow is looking for a lady companion and for the moment, Kate's future is assured. Meanwhile in Shetland, Malcolm McFadden, heir to the Garstan Estate, disagrees with his father's plan to clear the crofters from his land and turn it over to sheep. When he and Kate meet, they are instantly attracted to one other but circumstances get in the way.

Lettie Hargreaves is young, pretty and she wants more than her simple, uncomplicated life with her grandmother can provide. Lettie longs for excitement and love and she's determined to make something of herself. Ivy knows that Lettie can never find out the real reason why Lettie's mother left so she has done her best to shield her from the truth over the years. So when Lettie suggests going into service for the ailing Lady Laughton, Ivy knows that she must do something to stop it.

Rosa grew up an orphan in a remote, watery island fastness on the wild East coast of Yorkshire. Taken in as a small child by the motherly Mrs Drew, she realised as she grew up that this large and seemingly close farming family contained many troubled souls: Mr Drew, whose religious fervour held a dark secret; Jim, the eldest son, who was terrified of something from his past; Delia, longing to escape from the island; and tall, handsome, confident Matthew, who wanted only one thing - Rosa herself.

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.

May 1942: Kitty Pargeter loves the life she’s leading as a talented young pilot, serving her country. But tragedy strikes when she is forced to crash-land and is badly injured. She is taken to a specialist hospital in Cliffehaven, where she must come to terms with the disabling injury that threatens her career. Then comes the shattering news that her beloved brother has been shot down and presumed dead. And she wonders if she’ll be able to find the courage and fortitude to carry on.

Emily was only five years old when she was sent away from her ma and pa and her brother, Joe, to go and live with old Granny Edwards. A loving and hardworking child, she goes into service when she is 12 at the house of Roger Francis, whose connections with Emily's own family prove to be closer than she could ever have guessed. Roger's daughter, Deborah, takes a great fancy to Emily, and when Emily has moved to another household in Hull she finds that her new employer's son, Hugo, is to marry Deborah.

Sarah Foster's parents have been fighting a constant battle with poverty, disease and crime. When her father, Will, is involved in a terrible accident at work, their lives became even harder. But Will's good deeds of the past pay off as John Rayner decides to rescue the Fosters. John provides them with work and a house on the estate owned by his wealthy family.

For Amelia and her brothers and sisters, the grim past which their mother, Emily, had endured seemed very far away. As pretty as a picture and now learning to be a teacher in York, Amelia looked forward with pleasure to becoming acquainted with the young men clamouring to get to know her, and especially the two gentlemen who had come all the way from Australia to meet her family. Ralph Hawkins, bringing with him his friend Jack - a handsome half-aboriginal Australian who was determined to make a good living for himself - arrived in Hull looking for his roots.

Can two friends find hope in hard times? Ruby and Grace have grown up in the poorest slums of Hull. Friends since early childhood, they have supported each other in bad times and good. But their families are bound together by more than friendship, and secrets from the past threaten to make their lives even more difficult. The local cotton mill has provided work for Ruby and Grace since they were nine years old, and now, years later, both girls find themselves the objects of attention from the mill owner's sons.

Driven by the fear of encroaching death, an elderly woman describes to a write a long letter to her granddaughter, in the shape of a diary. Part love letter and part confession, it is most importantly a bequest from an old woman at last brave enough to acknowledge that she has too long repressed her feelings and submitted to convention. Reliving everything that has happened to her she seeks to remind her granddaughter that the one worthwhile journey in life to the centre of oneself.

The 13th heartwarming novel in the Beach View Boarding House series, from Sunday Times best-selling author Ellie Dean. As the war continues to keep her family far away, Peggy Reilly must continue to look after her girls at the Beach View Boarding House and maintain hope that this dreadful war will soon be over.

When Lucy's parents are killed in a train crash, her kindly uncle steps in to look after the little girl - to the initial apprehension of his wife and her son. However, Lucy's sweet, spirited charm slowly wins over her new family, and as she overcomes the trauma of her childhood, she grows up inspired to become a doctor, just like her father. But studying medicine in London takes Lucy far from her home in Hull and the people she loves, and she has to battle to be accepted in a man's world.

An atmospheric BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation based on C. J. Sansom's best-selling Tudor crime novel featuring hunchback lawyer detective Matthew Shardlake. Autumn, 1541. King Henry VIII has set out on a spectacular Royal Progress to York, aiming to strike fear and awe into his rebellious northern subjects. Shardlake and his assistant, Barak, arrive in the city a day ahead of the 3,000-strong procession.

Evacuated from Blitz-battered London, Elizabeth White is sent to stay with the O'Connors in Ireland. It is the beginning of an unshakeable bond between Elizabeth and Aisling, a friendship which will endure through 20 turbulent years of change and chaos, joy and sorrow, soaring dreams, and searing betrayals. Maeve Binchy tells a magnificent story of the lives and loves of two women, bound together in a friendship that nothing can tear asunder - not even the man who threatens to come between them forever.

Norway, AD 785. It began with the betrayal of a lord by a king.... King Gorm puts Jarl Harald's family to the sword but makes one fatal mistake - he fails to kill Harald's youngest son, Sigurd. His kin slain, his village seized and its people taken as slaves, Sigurd wonders if the gods have forsaken him. Hunted by powerful men, he is unsure who to trust, and yet he has a small band of loyal followers at his side.

Cliffehaven, May 1944. The tension is rising for Peggy Reilly and the inhabitants of Cliffehaven as the planes continue to roar above the town, and there is still no news of the long-awaited Allied invasion into France. There seems to be no end in sight of this war, which has scattered her family and brought conflict right to the door of Beach View Boarding House, but Peggy cannot work miracles, and the toll of the war is beginning to weigh on her slender shoulders.

In seventh-century Britain, small kingdoms are merging, frequently and violently. A new religion is coming ashore; the old gods are struggling, their priests worrying. Hild is the king's youngest niece, and she has a glimmering mind and a natural, noble authority. She will become a fascinating woman and one of the pivotal figures of the Middle Ages: Saint Hilda of Whitby. But now she has only the powerful curiosity of a bright child, a will of adamant, and a way of seeing the world that can seem uncanny, even supernatural, to those around her.