The Girl With No Name (68 page)

‘Mum, it wasn’t like that. Reet fell off her stool. You know what she’s like. She was fidgeting... she’s always fidgeting, you know she is. An’ she fell off and hit her face, poor little kid.’ Mavis’s eyes challenged her mother to disbelieve her and Lily looked a little less certain.

‘That’s what she said—’ began Lily.

‘Because that’s what happened, Mum. Did you see her on the way to school?’

‘Yes, they were just going in.’

‘Look, Mum, I was just leaving. I got to be at Mrs Robinson’s in twenty minutes. Walk with me to the bus, eh? I must go or I’ll be late.’ She edged her mother towards the front door, and Lily allowed herself to be eased out of the house and into the street. Mavis closed the door behind her and, taking her mother firmly by the arm, began walking towards the bus stop.

‘Sorry, Mum,’ she said, ‘but I mustn’t be late. The cleaning takes me a bit longer these days and I don’t want Mrs Robinson to turn me off. I was going to come and see you when I’d finished. Jimmy’s going to the registry office today to get the wedding sorted. You have to put your name on a list for three weeks or something... not sure quite what, but Jimmy knows and he’s going to do it in his dinnertime.’

‘You really want to marry him, Mavis?’ asked Lily, trying to walk more slowly. She wanted to talk to Mavis, to have things out with her, but knew that here in the street wasn’t the place.

‘Yes, I do,’ Mavis asserted. ‘He’ll make a great dad.’

‘Oh, Mavis, you know—’

‘Sorry, Mum, here’s my bus.’ Mavis stuck her hand out to hail the bus and scrambled aboard as soon as it stopped. She turned back, looking at her mother still standing on the pavement. ‘I’ll come in and see you tomorrow, Mum. Tell you the wedding date and that.’

The bus began to draw away, and Mavis moved inside, waving to her mother through the window.

Lily watched her go with distinct misgivings. She remained unconvinced that Rita had simply fallen off her stool. No, Jimmy Randall had something to do with it. Jimmy Randall was not good news, not good news at all.

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Lisa is thirteen when she arrives in England in August 1939, with just one precious letter from the mother she will never see again. Bullied at school for being German, worse is to come when the Blitz blows her new home apart and she wakes up in hospital, with no memory of who she is or where she came from. Only the letter in her pocket gives a clue as to her identity, so the authorities give Lisa a new name, make her a ward of court and despatch her to a children’s home.

But one person is sure that she is still alive – Harry, the trouble-prone boy who protected her at school is determined to find and rescue Lisa again if he can.

T
HE
T
HROWAWAY
C
HILDREN

‘Enlightening, compelling and emotional.’

Living North

‘A great success.’

The Weston, Worle and Somerset Mercury

T
HE
N
EW
N
EIGHBOURS

“Diney Costeloe writes with great style. A compelling storyteller, she draws you inexorably from page to page. [
The New Neighbours
] is an excellent read, I enjoyed the story enormously and escaping into it was a wonderful way to relax.”

Sally Alford, former HTV presenter

D
INEY
C
OSTELOE
is the author of seventeen novels, several short stories, and many articles and poems. She has three children and seven grandchildren, so when she isn’t busy writing, she’s busy with family. She and her husband divide their time between Somerset and West Cork.

Visit her website:
dineycosteloe.co.uk

Or follow her on Twitter:
@Dineycost

The Throwaway Children

Gritty, heartrending and unputdownable – the story of two sisters sent first to an English, then an Australian orphanage in the aftermath of World War 2.

Rita and Rosie Stevens are only nine and five years old when their widowed mother marries a violent bully called Jimmy Randall and has a baby boy by him. Under pressure from her new husband, she is persuaded to send the girls to an orphanage – not knowing that the papers she has signed will entitle them to do what they like with the children.

And it is not long before the powers that be decide to send a consignment of orphans to their sister institution in Australia. Among them – without their family’s consent or knowledge – are Rita and Rosie, the throwaway children.

The Throwaway Children
is available
here
.

The Girl With No Name

Lisa is thirteen when she arrives in England in August 1939, with just one precious letter from the mother she will never see again. Bullied at school for being German, worse is to come when the Blitz blows her new home apart and she wakes up in hospital, with no memory of who she is or where she came from. Only the letter in her pocket gives a clue as to her identity, so the authorities give Lisa a new name, make her a ward of court and despatch her to a children’s home.

But one person is sure that she is still alive – Harry, the trouble-prone boy who protected her at school is determined to find and rescue Lisa again if he can.

The Girl With No Name
is available
here
.

The Lost Soldier

(previously published as
The Ashgrove
)

In 1921, eight ash trees were planted in the Dorset village of Charlton Ambrose as a timeless memorial to the men killed in World War One. Overnight a ninth appeared, marked only as for ‘the unknown soldier’.

But now the village’s ashgrove is under threat from developers. Rachel Elliot, a local reporter, sets out to save the memorial and solve the mystery of the ninth tree. In so doing, she uncovers the story of Tom Carter and Molly Day: two young people thrown together by the war, their love for each other, their fears for the present and their hopes for the future. Embroiled in events beyond their control, Tom and Molly have to face up to the harsh realities of the continuing war, the injustices it allows and the sacrifices it demands.

The Lost Soldier
is available
here
.

The Sisters of St. Croix

(previously published as
Death’s Dark Vale
)

A gripping story of love, death and danger in Nazi Occupied France.

When Adelaide Anson-Gravetty finds out her father is not the man who raised her, she is both shocked and intrigued. Determined to find out more about her new family, she travels to the convent of Our Lady of Mercy in France to meet her aunt, the Reverend Mother.

But when France falls to the German army, Adelaide and the nuns are soon in the thick of a war that threatens both their beliefs and their lives. Collaborating with the resistance, sheltering Jewish orphans, defying the rulings of Vichy France: these are dangerous activities in dangerous times.

These courageous women must give all they’ve got in order to protect the innocent from the evil menace of the Nazi war machine.