Bøger af Sandra Savage

Annie Pepper is now in her mid forties and her daughter Lexie has just turned seventeen. Annie's late sister Mary, also had a daughter who is called Nancy and she is nineteen years old. This latest book in the Pepper family saga is their story of growing up in Dundee in the 1930s and, like their mothers before them, trying to find love and a better life in a city where poverty still reigns and happiness can still only be found with the support of the men in their lives. Lexie seems to be carving a future for herself as a typist in Baxters Mill Office, with a boyfriend who loves her and wants to marry her. However, the past in the shape of ex boyfriend Robbie Robertson comes back into her life with disturbing consequences and unrequited love. Nancy, on the other hand, married Billy Donnelly after becoming pregnant to him, but both of them find that domestic life and redundancy force them down different paths, which the arrival of their second child, wee Billy, exacerbates and finds Billy senior in the arms of a prostitute. Annie herself has also found that the past can find you unexpectedly and a letter arrives telling her of the imminent arrival of her illegitimate son, John, conceived in Ireland with Billy Dawson, but unknown to him or her husband Euan. The consequences of everyone finding out about her bastard son, especially her family, almost overwhelm Annie, but she must see her son whatever the costs. But what price does she have to pay for revealing her love for her secret son? Will there be a happy ending?

Annie Melville thinks she finally has everything she wants: a loving husband with whom romance and babies is a real possibility, a good home, and the dangerous Billy Dawson out of her life for good. But in an unforgiving age where women alone rely on the family circle to survive the perils of urban life, what happens when family drama threatens to tear her world apart? Almost as soon as they are married, Annie's new husband, Alex, a police sergeant with the Dundee constabulary, shows his true colours, and Annie's dream of historical romance turns into a nightmare. He is jealous of women and men both, suspects her of disloyalty, and, when a letter arrives from a long lost friend in Ireland, it tips him over the edge. But despite being beset by an abusive husband and having her dreams of romance and babies worn away, Annie has other problems to deal with. Her sister, Mary - the last of her family circle - is confronting an historical romance of her own in the form of one of Annie's previous suitors, Joe Cassiday. In such an urban life and with the looming threat of the First World War hanging over them, their union has resulted in a child that may never see its father. And what of Billy Dawson, the man whose hasty actions caused all this family drama and misery? He still pines for Annie, but when a drunken accident one night causes a fire that nearly kills him, he decides to put his past behind him and leave the women alone to get on with their lives. He takes lodgings in the house of Josephine MacIntyre, an attractive widow who soon falls for Billy's charms. In this masterful sequel to a truly wonderful debut, the lives of Annie Melville (née Pepper) and those she meets are woven into a complex tapestry that depicts the struggles of women and men in early twentieth-century Dundee.

This is the third book in this historical romance family adventure trilogy concerning Annie, (Pepper then Melville). From her original roots in Ireland Annie has had an eventful and often tumultuous personal and family life in Dundee and, in Annie MacPherson, we see her move to another phase of her life, equally full of problems, intrigue and decisions to make. The year is 1928 and Annie Melville has been happily married for 11 years to Euan MacPherson. They have a 10 year old son, Ian, and a daughter, Lexie, from Annie's first marriage to Alex Melville. Annie's links to the past and Billy Dawson seemed to have weakened with the passing of time, but when Billy's daughter, Nancy, is threatened by her obsessive stepfather, Joe Cassiday, both Billy and Annie are forced together again and have to face the deep emotional response their meeting has aroused, as it surfaces again. Annie has to seek Billy's help too for her own daughter Lexie, who wants to work in the mill as a weaver, like her mother and again, he comes to Annie's rescue, causing waves of guilt to envelope her every time Euan shows his deep love for her. Time and again, fate seems to push Annie and Billy towards one another, each recognizing that the bond between them is still there, despite Billy's wife, Josie, trying to keep them both as far apart as possible. As this moving historical romance develops the lives of Lexie and Nancy, fate has one more hand to deal Annie. A letter arrives from Ireland which disturbs and frightens her and at the christening of Nancy's newborn daughter, things come to a head with Billy Dawson, leaving Annie with a decision to make that could change her life forever.

It's 1962 and Elvis is King of Rock & Roll. Sweet sixteen and best pals, Maisie Green and Chrissie Dalton are ready to discover what the world (and particularly the boys in it) has to offer them. Working as Chocolate Packers in Keillers Sweet Factory in Dundee, Maisie harbors a secret ambition to better herself. She won't settle for the same lot as her co-workers. But what Maisie hasn't bargained on is just how tricky finding 'the one' actually is - the man who could sweep her off her feet and change her life forever. Nor is she prepared for the jealous people she meets as she makes her way up the social ladder. Chrissie, on the other hand, is quite content with her lot, until a sailor turns her life upside down and makes her long for a better life too - away from the local teddy boys and the greyness of the housing scheme where they live. Both girls have to jump over many hurdles in this romantic romp through the 'swinging sixties'. Their experiences of the world and the men they encounter - where two-timing and sexual tension rules - teaches them who to love and who not to trust. As the year ends on Hogmany, they are both faced with the biggest decision of their lives. Will they make the right choices and find their happy ending? Can an old head ever fit onto young shoulders? Will Hogmany find Maisie and Chrissie jiving happily into 1963 or drowning their sorrows?

The course of family saga historical love stories is not a smooth one for Annie Pepper, a young woman facing the burdens of poverty and unrequited love in historical Ulster. When Billy Dawson turns up on her mother's flax farm to help with the harvest, Annie is captivated by him, and believes the promises he makes to her when he says he will marry her. But her sister, Mary, has also fallen for him, and the jealousy between these two women in love threatens to shatter the family ties that are all that hold the farm together. When the worst happens and Annie's mother runs out of money, family drama splits the sisters and drives Annie and her mother into the Poorhouse, where she must toil for long hours to earn her keep, even as her mother withers away into nothing. Kept hoping only by the women friendships she has formed with the other inmates of the Poorhouse, her spirit soars when she receives a letter from her sister asking Annie to come and live with her - but Mary is in Dundee, married to the man she loves, who she thought loved her. It turns out her life was not one of the great family saga historical love stories after all. But where else can she go? Hoping to escape her dead-end life in Ulster, Annie accepts her sister's invitation and follows her to Dundee, where she discovers both sadness and joy, heartbreak and hope, and finds that despite the literature of historical fiction women can find happiness even in the most desolate of places. In this historical fiction women friendships are tested by family drama and bound by love, tracing the struggles of working class women in love in the late nineteenth century.

The second world war is over and the people of Dundee are beginning to salvage what they can of their lives and rebuild their broken homes and families, but for Lexie and Nancy, the battle for their futures had just begun. For Lexie, coming home to Dundee and her old life of living at home with her mother, Annie and Annie's husband, Billy Dawson, filled her with horror. Having found independence when she enlisted in the Womens Auxiliary Air Force in 1942 and having loved and lost her own husband, Robbie Robertson to Hitler's U Boat attack on Robbie's ship, Lexie is hungry for everything the world outside Dundee can offer and nothing her mother can say or do is going to stop her. If she is to find love and happiness again, something told her it wouldn't be in Dundee.For Nancy too, the war had brought her freedom and the chance to make her own decisions. With her estranged husband, Billy Donnelly, away fighting with the Scots Guards, Nancy had returned to work, as a Weaver at Baxters Jute Mill, giving her the means and independence to taste the sweetness of being desired by sexually-starved soldiers, but especially desired by the married man, Jim Murphy, her Gaffer at the Mill. But the war was now over and Billy Donnelly was being demobbed and was on his way back to Nancy and his three bairns, wee Billy, Mary Anne and King|Kevin. But his first thoughts weren't about Nancy, but about Gladys Kelly, the Prostitute who had loved him, unconditionally, for years and was waiting for him to knock, once more, on her door.For Billy Dawson, marriage to Annie had been a dream come true, but having Lexie back at the home he now shared with her mother was proving heart breaking, as he watched Annie fade into depression as Lexie confronted her mother about her wish for Lexie to remain at home, instead of following her own need to 'flee the coop' and get back the independence she relished. But Billy had a plan to bring Annie back to her old self. Only time would tell if his secret plan would work out, for all their sakes, but it was something he had to try.Annie and Billy had come a long way since they first met all those years ago in Ireland, when Annie Peppeer was a young, innocent girl and Billy an itinerant weaver, looking for work and finding more than he'd bargained for in the shape of Annie and her sister Mary. But, so much water had flowed under the bridge since then and the two were now married and Billy just wanted peace and contentment in his heart and mind and was hoping that his plan would be the route to both himself and Annie's future happiness.