Showing results by author "Ellen Feldman" in All Categories

Set in New York City in the heady aftermath of World War II, when the men were coming home, the women were exhaling in relief, and everyone was having babies, The Trouble with You is the story of Fanny Fabricant, whose rosy future is upended in a single instant. Educated for a career as a wife and mother, she is torn between her cousin Mimi, who is determined to keep her a “nice girl,” and her aunt Rose, who has a rebellious past of her own.

Living through World War II working in a Paris bookstore with her young daughter, Vivi, and fighting for her life, Charlotte is no victim, she is a survivor. But can she survive the next chapter of her life? Alternating between wartime Paris and 1950s New York publishing, Ellen Feldman's Paris Never Leaves You is an extraordinary story of resilience, love, and impossible choices, exploring how survival never comes without a cost.

The daughter of a hard-drinking, smooth-tongued freethinker and a mother worn down by 13 children, Margaret Sanger vowed her life would be different. Trained as a nurse, she fought for social justice beside labor organizers, anarchists, socialists, and other progressives, eventually channeling her energy to one singular cause: legalizing contraception.

Millie (Meike) Mosbach and her brother, David, manage to escape to the States just before Kristallnacht, leaving their parents and little sister in Berlin. Millie attends Bryn Mawr on a special scholarship for non-Aryan German girls and graduates to a magazine job in Philadelphia. David enlists in the army and is eventually posted to the top-secret Camp Ritchie in Maryland, which trains German-speaking men for intelligence work. Now they are both back in their former hometown, haunted by ghosts and hoping against hope to find their family.

Set in a small town in Massachusetts, Next to Love follows three childhood friends, Babe, Millie, and Grace, whose lives are unmoored when their men are called to duty. And yet the changes that are thrust upon them move them in directions they never dreamed possible—while their husbands and boyfriends are enduring their own transformations.

New York City, 1945. The war is over, the men are coming home and life can go back to normal for young Fanny Fabricant. But when she loses her rosy future in a single instant, she is forced to reinvent her life and raise her daughter alone on sheer will and courage. Brought up to be a 'nice girl', to never step out of bounds, and educated for a career as a wife and mother, Fanny quickly learns that the real world isn't so straightforward. When Fanny gets a job working for the queen of radio dramas, she finally has a sense of control over her life - until two very different men enter.

At the height of the Cold War, words are weapons and secrecy reigns. These are challenging times to be a writer and a wife, as Nell Benjamin knows only too well. One bright November day in 1963, the dazzling young president arrives in Texas and Nell receives a phone call that overturns the world as she knows it. In the shocking aftermath, whilst America mourns, Nell must come to terms with both a tragedy and a betrayal that shatters every illusion of the man she thought she knew better than anyone else.

At the height of the Cold War, words are weapons and secrecy reigns. These are challenging times to be a writer and a wife, as Nell Benjamin knows only too well. One bright November day in 1963, the dazzling young president arrives in Texas and Nell receives a phonecall that overturns the world as she knows it. In the shocking aftermath, whilst America mourns, Nell must come to terms with both a tragedy and a betrayal that shatters every illusion of the man she thought she knew better than anyone else.

Babe, Grace, and Millie have been best friends since kindergarten. Despite their differences, they’ve played together, grown up together, and shared each other’s secrets. And when World War Two becomes a reality for America, each quickly marries her first true love. With the men away, life is difficult for these women. But when no fewer than 16 telegrams arrive on a single morning in 1944 - all bearing news of the worst kind from the War Department - the girls know that nothing will ever be the same again.

Young Meike Mosbach and her brother escape Berlin just before the horror of Kristallnacht, leaving their parents and little sister to follow them to America. But their family never arrives. Haunted by their loss, Meike becomes Millie and graduates from college to work as a magazine journalist while David enlists in the army to work in intelligence. After the war, they both return to a shattered Berlin, hoping against hope to find their family.

Paris, 1944. Charlotte Foret is working in a tiny bookstore in Nazi-occupied Paris struggling to stay alive and keep her baby Vivi safe. Every day they live through is a miracle until Vivi becomes gravely ill. In desperation, Charlotte accepts help from an unlikely saviour - and her life is changed forever.

Set in post-war Berlin, this moving and timely story about love and war, sacrifice and forgiveness, which packs a powerful punch as it follows a courageous and driven woman’s quest to find her lost family and her own redemption in the ruins of a broken city, once her childhood home. With a dual narrative that seamlessly interweaves past and present, Return to Berlin also gradually lifts the veil on a shattering secret.

Paris, 1944. Charlotte Foret is working in a tiny bookstore in Nazi-occupied Paris struggling to stay alive and keep her baby, Vivi, safe as the world around them is being torn apart. Every day they live through is a miracle until Vivi becomes gravely ill. In desperation, Charlotte accepts help from an unlikely saviour - and her life is changed forever. Charlotte is no victim - she is a survivor. But the truth of what happened in Paris is something she can never share with anyone, including her daughter.