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Elaine Everest

Against the backdrop of impending war, experience the trials, triumphs and camaraderie behind the Woolworths counter, in Elaine Everest’s historical romance The Woolworths Girls.

It's 1938 and as the threat of war hangs over the country, Sarah Caselton is preparing for her new job at Woolworths. Before long, she forms a tight bond with two of her colleagues: the glamorous Maisie and shy Freda. The trio couldn't be more different, but they immediately form a close-knit friendship, sharing their hopes and dreams for the future.

Sarah soon falls into the rhythm of her new position, enjoying the social events hosted by Woolies and her blossoming romance with young assistant manager, Alan. But with the threat of war clouding the horizon, the young men and women of Woolworths realize that there are bigger battles ahead. It's a dangerous time for the nation, and an even more perilous time to fall in love . . .

The first in Elaine Everest's Woolworths series, The Woolworths Girls is followed by the festive sequel, Christmas at Woolworths.

Annie Aldington

Woolworths

The Woolworths Girls

Following on from her bestselling historical fiction The Woolworths Girls, Christmas at Woolworths is the heartfelt second book in Elaine Everest's Woolworths series.

Even though there was a war on, the Woolworths girls brought Christmas cheer to their customers.

Best friends Sarah, Maisie and Freda are brought together by their jobs at Woolworths. With their loved ones away on the front line, their bonds of friendship strengthen each day. Betty Billington is the manager at Woolworths, and a rock for the girls, having given up on love . . . Until a mysterious stranger turns up one day – could he reignite a spark in Betty?

As the year draws to a close, and Christmas approaches, the girls must rely on each other to navigate the dark days that lie ahead . . .

With so much change, can their friendship survive the war?

Macmillan Digital Audio

Christmas at Woolworths

The Woolworths girls have come a long way together . . .

Fun loving Maisie, is devoted to her young family and her work at Woolworths. But her happy life with her RAF officer husband, their baby daughter leads her to think of the family she left behind . . . With the war now into its fourth year, what will she find when she sets about searching for them?

Sarah and her husband, Alan, are blissfully happy and long for a sibling for their daughter. But dark days lay ahead for this close family.

Freda heads home to Birmingham, to go in search of her family, back to the life she fled – far from the safety of Woolworths and her new friends.

With families’ separated by war, will the Woolworths girls be able to pull together?

Wartime at Woolworths is the third moving instalment in the much-loved Woolworths series by bestselling author Elaine Everest.

Wartime at Woolworths

Will the war be over by Christmas?

As the war moves into 1945 the lives of the women of Woolworths continue. When store manager, Betty Billington, announces she is expecting Douglas’s baby her future life is about to change more than she expects.

Freda has fallen in love with the handsome Scottish engineer but will it end happily?

Maisie loves being a mother and also caring for her two nieces although she still has her own dreams. When her brother appears on the scene he brings unexpected danger to the family.

Meanwhile Sarah dreams of her husband’s return and a cottage with roses around the door but Woolworths beckons.

Will our girls sail into times of peace, or will they experience more heartache and sorrow? With a wedding on the horizon, surely only happiness lies ahead – or does it?

A Gift from Woolworths is the fourth instalment in Elaine Everest's much-loved Woolworths series.

A Gift from Woolworths

July 1947. Britain is still gripped by rationing, even as the excitement of Princess Elizabeth’s engagement sweeps the nation. In the Woolworths’ canteen, Freda is still dreaming of meeting her own Prince Charming. So far she’s been unlucky in love. When she has an accident on her motorbike, knocking a cyclist off his bicycle, it seems bad luck is still following her around. Anthony is not only a fellow Woolworths employee but was an Olympic hopeful. Will his injured leg heal in time for him to compete? Can he ever forgive Freda?

Sarah's idyllic family life is under threat with worries about her husband, Alan. Does he still love her?

The friends must rally round to face some of the toughest challenges of their lives together. And although they experience loss, hardship and shocks along the way, love is on the horizon for the Woolworths girls . . .

Wedding Bells for Woolworths is the fifth instalment in Elaine Everest's much-loved Woolworths series.

Macmillan

Wedding Bells for Woolworths

A Mother Forever is the moving story of one woman's journey through the hardest trials of her life and how the love of friends and family pulls her through. From the bestselling author of The Woolworths Girls Elaine Everest, this book tells the tale of Ruby and how it all began . . .

1905: Ruby Caselton may only be twenty-five years old but she already has the weight of the world on her shoulders. Heavily pregnant with her second child, penniless and exhausted, she is moving her family into a new home. The Caseltons left their last place when they couldn’t pay the rent, but Ruby’s husband Eddie has promised this will be a fresh start for them all. And Ruby desperately hopes that this time he will keep his word.

With five-year-old George at her feet and her mother having a cross word for everyone and everything, life is never dull at number thirteen Alexandra Road. It doesn’t take long before Eddie loses another job and once again hits the bottle. It’s up to Ruby to hold them all together, through thick and thin. She remembers the kind, caring man Eddie once was and just can’t give up on him entirely. What she doesn’t know is that Eddie has a secret, one so dark that he can’t bear to tell even Ruby . . .

Through Ruby’s grit and determination, she keeps food on the table and finds herself a community of neighbours on Alexandra Road. Stella, the matriarch from across the way, soon becomes a friend and confidante. She even dreams that Ruby will ditch the useless Eddie and take up with her eldest son, Frank. But when war breaks out in 1914, the heartbreaks and losses that follow will fracture their community, driving both Stella and Ruby to breaking point. Will their men ever return to them?

A Mother Forever is a moving but heartwarming story about the family we’re connected to through blood, but also the family we make for ourselves with neighbours and friends. A prequel to The Woolworths Girls, it can also be listened to as a compelling novel in its own right. 

A warm, tender tale of friendship and love . . . sweet as a Woolies pick’n’mix - Milly Johnson on The Woolworths Girls

A Mother Forever

Can the Woolworth girls achieve their dreams in time for their futures to begin? The Woolworths Saturday Girls is the seventh instalment in Elaine Everest's much-loved Woolworths series.

1950. The Second World War is over and life has moved on for the Woolworth girls, Sarah, Maisie and Freda. In a new world the Woolworth women have high expectations of their daughters, wanting them to seize opportunities they didn’t have themselves.

Ready to take on Saturday jobs at Woolworths, budding friends Bessie, Claudette, Clementine and Dorothy are faced with unforeseeable challenges, as the real world comes into focus. Their bond can only be strengthened as they overcome the darkest times. Perhaps their lives are not as clear-cut as their mothers wished them to be . . .

When Bessie finds love in the wrong crowd and falls pregnant, the image of her future and ambitions become skewed and she relies on the Saturday girls to help her see her problems through – but how will they find a home for the baby when it arrives?

With wild imaginations, it is up to the Woolworth girls, new and old, to save the day – and their futures . . .

The Woolworths Saturday Girls

The Woolworth Girl’s Promise is the heart warming eighth novel in Elaine Everest’s bestselling Woolworths series that follows the turbulent life of a much-loved Woolworth girl.

After losing her beloved fiancé at Ypres in 1917, seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Billington faces a lonely future estranged from her upper-class parents due to her association with Charlie Sayers and his working-class family. No longer able to live under her parent’s roof she is taken in by Charlie’s father, escaping the suffocating demands of her parents.

Betty soon learns all too well about the realities of life after an accident at the Woolwich Arsenal munitions works. Spotting an advertisement for a nearby job at Woolworths, Betty starts on a new and thrilling journey starting at the bottom of the employment ladder in the well-known store.

Her work journey leads her to Ramsgate in Kent to work in a newly built store and with it the chance of marriage, but can she ever forget Charlie and the promise she made to him . . . ?

Read this exciting early chapter in the life of well-known Betty Billington and follow her journey before she arrives at the Erith store and meets fellow Woolworths Girls in 1938 as war is again on the horizon . . .

'Another uplifting read from the master stpryteller.' - Lancaster Post

The Woolworths Girl's Promise

It's 1952 and with a new Monarch about to ascend the thrown, The Woolworths Girls will face fresh new challenges . . .

At The Erith Store there is a new temporary manager and Sarah is getting more than a little concerned by problems he seems to be creating. The whole mess is enough to make her resign.

Meanwhile, Ruby is extremely worried about her friend Vera, and with illness causing a problem from Vera's past to come flooding back, she knows it’s going to take a lot of strength and willpower to do what needs to be done.

Then there is Freda, looking forward to the arrival of her first child – but sick with worry that her Tony won’t have returned home in time for the birth.

As Coronation Day for young Queen Elizabeth II approaches, the girls from Woolworths celebrate friendship, family and overcoming anything that life can throw at them . . .

Celebration for the Woolworths Girls is the ninth novel in Elaine Everest's bestselling Woolworths series.

Celebrations for the Woolworths Girls

Kent, 1953. The Woolworths Erith store, a beloved cornerstone of the community, faces closure if the December turnover fails to increase. And, as if store manager Betty Billington doesn't have enough on her plate, personnel shortages and a troublesome new employee add to the strife.

With Christmas on the horizon, Betty and her staff must strive to find solutions to improve business and keep the store running – from special events for late-night customers to a festive group trip into central London. The Erith Players pantomime also promises to draw a crowd, injecting excitement into the local community.

With the store festooned with decorations, lifting the spirits of customers and Betty, can a Christmas miracle save their beloved store?

A Christmas Wish at Woolworths is the next instalment in Elaine Everest’s much-loved Woolworths series – a heartfelt tale of resilience, community and an unwavering spirit during hard times.

This is the tenth book in the Woolworths series, following Celebrations for the Woolworths Girls.

A Christmas Wish at Woolworths

There are fresh challenges and new beginnings on the horizon for the girls at Woolworths . . . 

It is only Annie Brooks’ second day working in the Bexleyheath branch of F. W. Woolworths when an oil bomb is dropped on the store and she must help save her fellow staff members.

Thankfully uninjured, she is moved to the Erith store. There, she meets a lad – much to the consternation of her mother, who is unhappy with her daughter spreading her wings. She'd much rather Annie stay at home to help with the family’s small laundry business and care for her ageing grandfather and young brother. Annie falls in love anyway, but is let down when she finds the man is married with children, almost costing her the job in the store.

At the beginning of 1944, American soldiers arrive at the nearby Hall Place, a stately home close to where Annie lives. The soldiers are involved in top-secret work, hand in glove with Bletchley Park. This brings a new love into Annie’s life and, through highs and lows, she finally marries her American soldier. At the end of the war, they leave England with their child to live in America, where Annie becomes an American Woolworths Girl.

Woolworths - The book series

Woolworths - The book series

Woolworths books in order

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