When the lights go down

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Sallie Day

Blackpool, 1959. The Singleton family is on holiday. For seven-year-old Beth this means avoiding her mother Ruth's supervision. Her sixteen-year-old sister Helen, meanwhile, has befriended a waitress whose fun-loving ways hint at a life beyond Ruth's strict rules. But Ruth's husband, Jack, a foreman of the local cotton mill, is caught between unions and owners whose cost-cutting measures threaten an entire way of life. When a letter arrives from Crete, a secret re-emerges from the rubble of Jack's wartime past that could destroy his marriage. Over the holiday week, all four Singletons must struggle to find their place in a shifting world.

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Rumer Godden

In post-war London, two street-tough children attempt to build a hidden garden, an act that awakens hidden courage in the children and profoundly disrupts the neighborhood.

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Harriet Martineau

When the Ibbotson sisters, Hester and Margaret, arrive at the village of Deerbrook to stay with their cousin Mr Grey and his wife, speculation is rife that one of them might marry the local apothecary Edward Hope. Although he is immediately attracted to Margaret, Hope is ultimately persuaded to marry the beautiful Hester. The unhappiness of their marriage is compounded when a malicious village gossip accuses Hope of grave-robbing.

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Kay Brellend

'Campbell Road was home to the most notorious criminals: thieves, prostitutes, fraudsters -- every sort of rogue and vagabond drifted through this slum.' Life was tough! but so were they Alice Keiver is a sensitive girl, growing up in one of the roughest parts of North London. As the daughter of an alcoholic mother, and niece of an abusive uncle, she dreams that one day she and her baby sister will escape their rotten surroundings. Alice's father, Jack Keiver, works day and night to provide for his family. But his hopes for a better life are dashed each time he returns home to find the money-jar raided and his feisty wife Tilly collapsed drunk in the corner. In the room below, Alice's downtrodden Aunt Fran spends most of her days nursing the injuries inflicted on her by her cruel husband Jimmy -- but this time he's pushed the family too far and they're not going to let him get away with it. Revenge is going to be sweet.