It is September 1940, Maggie and her young siblings, Grace and Billy, are living in the East End of London with their mother. Their father has been killed at Dunkirk and their mother goes into hospital to have her fourth child, leaving the children with a neighbour. In one of the worst bombing raids of the war their home is destroyed and the neighbour is killed. Bewildered and frightened, the children wander the streets until they are taken in by some nuns. But their problems are not over; no-one can trace their mother and, labelled as orphans, they are sent as child migrants to Australia.

The novel traces their adventures in their new country, the homesickness, the heartbreak when Billy is separated from his sisters and the loneliness of life in a cold and unfeeling orphanage. Eventually the children make new lives for themselves, but Maggie is still convinced that her mother is alive and once she is old enough, begins to search for her.

This novel is based on the experiences of real people and reflects the attitudes of the day towards child migration during and after the Second World War.

Exotic, romantic, and rich with historical detail, The Shining City is a timeless story of love, family, and the unexpected consequences of our actions. Set in 10th century Spain, in the time of the Moorish occupation, it is, above all, a story of love and honour.
When he moved to Madinat al-Zahra, Qasim thought he had escaped his turbulent past but when his youngest son falls in love with the Caliph's concubine, he sets off a train of unimaginable consequences and puts all his family, including Qasim, in danger. Qasim's secret is about to be revealed and all he has worked for destroyed.

The Shining City is the first book in a series about Moorish Spain.

Fashion designer Carla Kane has been too busy climbing the career ladder to sustain a long-term relationship – until she meets the charming, charismatic Harry Wilkinson, and falls deeply in love for the first time.
There’s only one problem: Harry is already married to Barbara, a stay-at-home wife who’s been content until now to devote all her energies to looking after her husband and children. The close-knit Wilkinson family unit is blown apart when Harry leaves Barbara, deserting the family home to start a new life in Spain with Carla.
When Harry dies in strange circumstances, Carla doesn’t know what to tell his family. His children want to evict her from the family home and the only weapon she has against them is the fact that she has recently discovered that, throughout their marriage, Harry and Barbara were keeping secrets from one another.
Now that Carla has discovered the truth from an unexpected source, she has to decide whether to use this knowledge to save her home, knowing the devastation it would cause, or to let the past lie.

Spanish Lavender is a love story set in the Spanish Civil War.

In January 1937, Elizabeth, a young English girl decides to remain in Spain when the rest of her family return to the peace of England. Alone in the devastated city of Malaga she makes friends with two young men, Juan, an idealistic Spaniard and Alex, a pragmatic Englishman. Together they make their escape from the war-torn city along the coast to Almeria. Amongst the death and carnage she falls in love with Juan, only to lose him shortly afterwards when he is badly wounded. Believing he is dead she returns to England with Alex, whom she later marries.

Seventy years later Kate, Elizabeth's granddaughter, is left a legacy following the death of her grandfather, a legacy that opens a Pandora's box of secrets and lies which Kate can only unravel by returning to Spain.

The House on the Beach is a novel set in the years after the Civil War, in a Spain ruled by the military dictator Francisco Franco. This is a time when women had little independence; they were expected to lead prescribed lives, dominated by first their fathers and then their husbands.
Rocio and Inma first meet as children. Despite coming from very different social backgrounds they form a close friendship. Rocio is the daughter of an Andalucian peasant, who makes his living from the land, growing olives and keeping goats; Inma is the daughter of a rich businessman, who lives and works in Madrid.
The story follows the lives of these two girls from childhood to maturity, as they share happiness, fears, disappointments, broken hearts and betrayals. Rocio is a shy and trusting girl, who becomes easily seduced by a handsome foreigner, while Inma, confident and manipulative, is the one who saves her from disgrace and the inevitable expulsion from the family home. Inma, a university student, soon becomes involved in student demonstrations and political subterfuge; all of which she confides to Rocio. But when Inma too becomes pregnant, things take a more sinister turn and her subsequent actions have a devastating affect on Rocio and her husband.
This social drama of two women trying to take control of their lives, despite living under a harsh dictatorship, offers a glimpse of what life was like in an authoritarian State, with an ever watchful Catholic Church and the close strictures of society.

SANTIAGO TALES
A journey in search of love

Beth is a woman whose life is falling apart; there are problems with her marriage, her career is in the doldrums and her health is not good.

When she discovers her husband has been leading a double life she realises she has to get away from the cosy village life where everyone knows your business and spend some time alone. She decides to do something she has never done before. She embarks on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

As Beth walks the five hundred miles across the north of Spain she is tested both physically and emotionally. She reaches the depths of despair and feels like giving up but then she meets other pilgrims—a soldier injured in Afghanistan, a woman who is looking for her lost son, a devout nun, a widower who thinks his life is over and many others—and each one has a tale to tell. Everyone has a secret in their life.

When she arrives in Santiago de Compostela, five weeks later, she realises that the journey has changed her in a way she never expected.

This collection of first-hand interviews offers us a snapshot of the lives of women living in Spain from the Spanish Civil War until the present day. Daughters of Spain gives a gripping account of the hard won changes within society for Spanish women, through the eyes and experiences of the interviewees themselves.

The women in the book are from all walks of life and span a wide range of ages; their words provide a vivid and unique picture of what life was really like for women in Spain over the past seventy years, of the hardships they endured and their aspirations for a more egalitarian future.

By the end of the 10th century al-Andalus was a rich and peaceful country, but when the Omayyad caliph died and left an eleven-year-old son as his heir, things began to change. The eventual disintegration of that powerful dynasty had begun. The young caliph was imprisoned in his beautiful palace, isolated and cut off from the Royal Court, while his ruthless regent and his ambitious mother battled over who should rule.

The Eye of the Falcon is the second novel in this series about Muslim Spain. It is a story of intrigue and murder, rich with the historical details of an exotic way of life, long disappeared.

Palette of Secrets is a mystery story about a famous artist, Nancy Miller. Nancy has been persuaded by her agent to publish her memoirs but needs a ghost writer to help her to write them. She finds a young woman called Ana who is keen to take on the job. However, as Nancy starts to recount her life story, it becomes obvious to Ana that the artist is hiding something, so she decides to dig more deeply into Nancy’s past. When she eventually works out what Nancy's terrible secret is, she doesn’t know what to do with the information - should she include it in the book and risk ruining Nancy's international reputation or should she tell Nancy's son what she has discovered? Either way the consequences threaten to be devastating for Nancy and her family. 

Have you ever had a secret that you cannot tell anyone - even your closest friend? Susan’s childhood was full of secrets—‘Don’t tell anyone,’ was her mother’s favourite phrase. So when she discovers that her father had an illegitimate child called Michael, she instinctively knows she can’t tell anyone.
But Susan isn’t a child anymore—she is a middle-aged woman who is keeping secrets from her husband in her search to find her half-brother. The need to know more about Michael becomes an obsession and she soon finds herself enmeshed in a web of lies and deceit as she tries to track him down.
When she and Michael finally meet, Susan is faced with a dilemma—she can walk away and forget about him or she can tell her family and face the consequences.

It is the year 1008 AD and al-Mansur, the despotic ruler of al-Andalus is dead. Without his iron grip the country is heading for civil war. Rule and order have collapsed and anarchy reigns. If Ahmad wants to keep his family safe they must leave Córdoba but before he can take action, the enemy lays siege to the city and their escape is cut off. For two years they struggle to survive in the beleaguered city, with no food, little water and no hope of escape. When he hears that Córdoba is about to surrender, Ahmad knows he must come up with a plan or his family will face certain death at the hands of the Berber mercenaries. One way or another they have to find a way out of the city, so he turns to an unlikely ally for help.

One night in an attempt to salve his conscience Mark tells his wife that he has been having an affair with her oldest and dearest friend, and with those few words sets off a chain of events that reverberates throughout his whole family and changes the lives of those he loves forever.
Love is All set in present day middle England. It tells the story of a family still grieving after the death of the youngest son, five years previously. Teresa, Mark and their two grown-up sons are at last coming to terms with a life without him, when the harmony of their home is shattered by Mark’s confession. Distraught with grief and rage, Theresa runs out of the house and drives off into the night; she crashes her car and is seriously hurt.
Months later, when she eventually comes out of a coma, her family are devastated to hear that the damage to her brain has caused a condition known as Locked-In Syndrome. She cannot speak or swallow and the only part of her body that she can move are her eyes. But the worst news is still to come. Her mind is unaffected and she is completely aware of everything around her. She is effectively locked inside her own body and unable to communicate with anyone.
For Teresa it is a nightmare from which she cannot wake. When she realises the enormity of her plight she is unable to accept it and decides to seek refuge in an imaginary parallel world, a world where she is a whole woman again. She refuses to acknowledge her family when they visit her but Ian, her younger son, will not let her go; he persists in every way he can to give her back the will to live.

In the first novel in a new historical series set in Moorish Spain, Joan Fallon sets the action in the busy medieval port of Málaga. Following on from the successful al-Andalus series, we meet up again with the younger members of the family who had escaped from the besieged city of Córdoba.
Makoud, now a middle-aged apothecary, has come to Málaga with his family to work. Shortly after they arrive they hear of the sudden death of the caliph Yahya I and rumours that he was poisoned. Makoud is worried that the poison used by the assassins was bought from his shop. His son, Umar, now a soldier in the caliph’s army, decides to investigate but he underestimates the power of the people behind the assassination, and instead he finds himself accused of murder and locked in the dungeons. His father, family and friends pool all their resources to try to help him but the closer they get to the truth, the greater the danger they are in.

Set in 11th century Málaga, ‘The Pirate’ is the second book in The City of Dreams trilogy. This fast moving and exciting historical novel takes the reader into the medieval world of the merchants and seafarers who sail along the western coast of the Mediterranean, and the pirates who terrorise them.
Early one morning, the ambitious pirate captain, al-Awar, makes a lightning raid on the shipyard in Málaga and kidnaps Bakr, a master shipbuilder, and two of his workmen. Before anyone can do anything about it, they have disappeared. No-one has any idea why the pirates have taken them or where they have gone, but everyone agrees that only one of two fates await them: death or slavery.
When Bakr’s wife receives the news, she is heartbroken but refuses to listen to those who say there is little hope of ever finding her husband alive. Instead she is determined to discover where the pirates have taken him. With the entire Mediterranean to hide in, finding the kidnapped men seems to be an impossible task, but she refuses to give up and motivates her family and friends to search for him.
At the heart of this novel is the tender love story of Aisha and Bakr’s deep feelings for each other. It is the thought of her that helps to keep him alive while he is in captivity with little prospect of ever seeing his home and family again, and it is her love for him that gives her the strength to never give up hope of bringing him home.

Book 3 in The City of Dreams trilogy picks up from the story of the Moorish prince who has been cast into prison by his brother, the new khalifa of Málaga. An unsettled period in the history of Moorish Spain becomes even more turbulent as intrigues and betrayal in the royal household threaten the stability of the city.
Against this background, Makoud’s cousin and her family arrive in Málaga, hoping to follow their dreams and make new lives for themselves, but they have secrets which if discovered could mean they would face exile or even death.
The Prisoner is a fast moving story of adventure and romance set in the exotic and vibrant 11th century city of Málaga.

Dark, thought provoking, yet light hearted in places, ‘Sophie is Still Missing’ is an intricate crime mystery which delves into the shadowy world of the Costa del Sol, people trafficking and modern slavery. Jacaranda Dunn is an ex-Metropolitan police officer who has moved to Spain to open a detective agency in Málaga. JD to her friends and colleagues, she is tough, resilient, manipulative and brave and her love life is complicated. She is having an on-off relationship with Federico, a captain in the Guardia Civil, who loves her but feels she is just using him in order to have access to police resources. Tim, a local reporter, is constantly inviting her to go out with him, and Jacobo, who makes television documentaries, is an ex-lover who is still her best friend. But JD is haunted by the death of her husband five years previously, and won’t consider a permanent relationship with anyone until she discovers who was behind his brutal stabbing. She also has another worry; Thomas Steed, a drug dealer sentenced to fourteen years in a maximum security prison as a result of her testimony, has been given early release. The last words she’d heard him say were a public threat to her safety. At first the work of the agency is fairly routine, missing dogs, stolen passports, unfaithful husbands. Then one day a woman comes into the agency and wants JD to find her missing daughter.

Set in southern Spain, ‘Dark Heart’ is the second book in the Jacaranda Dunne mysteries.

When the naked body of a well known actor is found murdered during the Málaga Film Festival, the Guardia Civil once more turn to JD and her team for help. The murder is far from straightforward. The killer has left a trail of clues for the police to follow, but the question is why? And what is he trying to tell them? They can find no obvious motive for the murder of this popular actor, whose naked body was found in the locked basement of the Picasso Museum.

This page turning mystery takes JD and her team along a trail of dead ends and through the bloody world of terrorism, until they discover the perpetrator was closer to home than they had realised.

On Midsummer's Eve the bodies of two young gypsies are found in a solitary spot near a beach in Málaga. It looks like the couple committed suicide—a lovers' pact to end it all—and the police are quick to close the case. But Jacaranda Dunne, a private investigator who used to work for the Met, thinks otherwise.

When the cousin of the dead girl asks JD to investigate, he tells her that the man was gay and the girl was pregnant—both reasons to despair when you are a gypsy, but not to commit suicide.

The investigation turns out to be more difficult than usual. Their work is impeded by the culture and customs of the gypsy community, who close ranks against any outside interference, and by a recalcitrant Guardia Civil commander. JD can expect little help from either of them so she and her team devise alternative ways of gathering the evidence.

At first there seems to be no motive for killing these two young people, but gradually as JD investigates further into the worlds in which they had lived, some unpleasant truths begin to emerge.

Strawberry Moon is the third book in the Jacaranda Dunne mysteries by award winning author Joan Fallon. If you like detectives who bend the rules you will love JD.

The Winds of Change is a love story set in Spain just before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, involving three families from very different backgrounds. The country is in political turmoil, with strikes and demonstrations. Unemployment is high and people are starving.

Ramon, a member of the Republican Left, has accidentally killed a policeman and is on the run from the Guardia Civil. He decides to hide in the hunting estate of Doñana where he meets and falls in love with Clementina, the beautiful daughter of a well-known gypsy horse trader.

One day, Hugo, the son of the wealthy owner of a local sherry bodega, Butler & Rodriguez, comes to Doñana to buy a horse. While he is there Hugo catches a glimpse of Clementina and becomes smitten by her beauty, but when he tries to see her again, he finds that both his parents and hers do everything they can to stop him.

Meanwhile Ramon's brother, Pedro, is arrested and imprisoned because he will not reveal his brother's whereabouts to the Guardia Civil. When Ramon hears this he knows he must do everything he can to save him. He has to choose between his brother and the woman he loves.

This historical novel is a story of love, politics, class prejudice, intrigue and betrayal in the year leading up to the Spanish Civil War.

In Too Close to the Sun, the fourth crime novel in the Jacaranda Dunne Mysteries, it is JD's mother, Rosa, who insists that JD investigates the tragic death of a young man who falls into the sea while paramotoring close to the harbour.

As shocked sunbathers watch the paramotor stall and the pilot desperately struggle to regain height, a strong gust of wind suddenly sweeps him across the harbour wall and out of sight.

The coast guards are quick to reach the scene but at first there is no sign of the man or his machine. Then police divers are brought in to recover his dead body. They find nothing unusual about the death and declare it an unfortunate accident, but JD's mother is not convinced and contacts her daughter.

The dead man is the son and heir of a prominent aristocrat, the Duke of Roble and Rosa is a close friend of the family. She explains to JD that the father is very ill and is not expected to recover. His son stood to inherit both the title and a considerable fortune if he had lived. Now it all goes to his sister. Does this mean that she is a suspect or is she too in danger of her life? Before she can take the investigation any further, JD has to determine whether his death was an accident or murder.

At first she struggles to find any concrete evidence of murder, however there are plenty of people with a motive to kill him.

Set in Málaga, ‘Too Close to the Sun’ is a murder mystery that will keep you guessing until the last page.