Margaret Pemberton Livres

It is early summer in 1953, and the friends and neighbours of Magnolia Square are looking forward to celebrating the Coronation. The war has become a memory; the future seems rosy. Kate Emmerson looks on with pride at her growing family, including Matthew, whose father was killed during the war. But Matthew's wealthy relations have never really forgiven Kate for marrying Leon, a West Indian who works as a Thames lighterman, and when Matthew runs away from his smart boarding school in Somerset the tensions which exist between the two families come to a head. Meanwhile Zac, the wonderfully talented and handsome new signing at the local boxing club, is being eyed hopefully by all the young women of Magnolia Square. But he has eyes for only one woman - Carrie Collins, who has teenage children of her own and whose husband, Danny, seems more interested in the boxing club and his market stall than in her. In the weeks leading up to the Coronation festivities, Magnolia Square is once again the centre of conflict and drama

A magnificent tale of romance and war sweeping through the first half of the twentieth century

The first book in The Londoners trilogy Magnolia Square in South London was a friendly and vibrant place to live, not least for Kate Voigt and her father. Carl Voigt had been a WWI prisoner of war who had married a cockney girl and never gone back. Now widowed, he and Kate were part of the London life of the square with all its rumbustious and colourful characters. Then came the war. Suddenly it seemed the Voigts were outcasts because of their German blood. When Carl was interned, Kate's only support was her best friend Carrie, and Toby, the R.A.F. pilot whom she loved. Finally, when Toby was killed, and even Carrie turned against her, she found herself pregnant and totally alone. Late one Christmas Even, during the Blitz, she was approached by a wounded sailor asking for lodgings. Leon Emmerson, like Kate, was also a lonely misfit because if his parentage. It was to be the beginning of a new friendship, of startling and dramatic events in Kate's life. And as the war progressed, as the Londoners fought to help each other while their city was bombed and burned, so the rifts in the community were healed, and Kate and those she loved became, once more, part of Magnolia Square

1945: The war was over, and the families who lived in Magnolia Square could look forward to their men coming home and their lives returning to normal. But for some, the end of the war brought serious problems. Kate Voigt was at last able to marry Leon Emmerson, the man she loved, a Londoner like herself, but of mixed race. When old man Harvey, a powerful and wealthy figure in South London and great-grandfather to Kate’s small son, heard of the match he was determined that young Matthew should not be raised by a ‘darkie’. Slowly, insidiously, he began the fight to wrest Kate’s son away from her.And for Jewish refugee Christina, who had married Jack Robson, a commando and the handsomest man in the Square, the end of the war brought its own special torment. She was convinced that her mother and grandmother had somehow escaped the holocaust and were alive. It seemed that her determination to find them could put everything, even her marriage, at risk.As Magnolia Square, scarred and battered, but still surviving, prepared to enjoy the ‘Peace’, so the inhabitants of the Square begin to try and rebuild their lives.

Set against the backdrop of World War I, this poignant family drama explores the intertwined lives of three distinct families. As they navigate the challenges and hardships of war, their stories reveal themes of love, loss, and resilience, highlighting the impact of conflict on personal relationships and the strength found in unity. Margaret Pemberton weaves a narrative that captures the emotional depth and complexity of familial bonds during tumultuous times.

To tell a patient they are about to die is never the easiest of tasks. When the patient is thirty-five, a woman and exceptionally beautiful, the task is even harder. In the winter of 1934 Nancy Leigh Cameron learns that she has only one more year to live. She is famous, sought-after, and living a life of deep inner loneliness. Her husband, Senator Jack Cameron, is cold and self-seeking. He needs Nancy because she can help him to become President. Her father, Chips O'Shaughnessy, ebullient Irish mayor of Boston, loves Nancy, but also needs her socially desirable marriage to last so that he can further his own career. When Nancy learns that she is to die she decides that she will live her last year for herself. Leaving New York for the exclusive hotel of Sanfords on the flower-filled island of Madeira, she embarks on the love affair of a lifetime. She has no idea that Ramon Sanford, the man she loves, is her father's bitterest enemy, and that their passion will unlock dark family secrets and tragedies that have lain buried for more than a generation. Set in the 1930s The Flower Garden is a grand love story in the tradition of Brief Encounter and An Affair to Remember.

A powerful novel of love and friendship, triumphing over the anguish of loss - When their husbands go missing, the three girls must draw on all their courage simply to keep going. They pursue their lives with a determination borne of need, but when chance brings them together, they find strength in their new friendship which carries them through despair into hope. Together they set out for Vietnam to find the men they loved and find themselves.

The sequel to Unforgettable Days - Abbra, Serena and Gabrielle three women with nothing in common except the Vietnam War are reunited in Saigon where each embarks on a search for her missing husband. They are drawn together by their shared fear and grief, and by a common purpose: to find the men they love.

Accused of witchcraft and hunted by Louis XIV's fanatical Inquisitor, Marietta Riccardi is only rescued from being burned alive by the intervention of Léon de Villeneuve -- the Lion of Languedoc. Small wonder that she falls in love with him! Yet Léon is on his way to marry his childhood sweetheart, Elise, and to him Marietta is nothing but a tiresome peasant girl . . . beautiful and seductive perhaps, but an unwelcome distraction from his forthcoming wedding. Marietta knows that she should leave France -- escape her persecutors and her hopeless love -- yet she cannot tear herself away from Languedoc, or from Léon . . .

Susan Carter's idyllic Bavarian holiday was rudely shattered while picnicking on the hillside by the sound of a speeding car, followed by a crash. Looking through her binoculars she saw the occupants leave their wrecked car and then take off in her own small Morris. If only Susan hadn't read the newspaper account of the murder of a German minister! If only she hadn't recognized the photograph of the car--said to have been used by the assassins! For Susan life gradually takes on the horror of a nightmare. Nor does she know which of her 'rescuers' to trust --Stephen Maitland or Gunther Cliburn.