A Sister's Sacrifice

Yorkshire, England, 1914.
Olivia Brodie is a devoted parlourmaid serving the Broadbent family at Hawthorn Manor and spending precious time with her father and brothers at the family forge. But everything changes the day Spencer Middleton, the Broadbents' charming and enigmatic grandson, arrives. Sparks fly between Olivia and the army officer. Their connection is undeniable-but so too are the rigid boundaries of class and propriety. When Spencer departs, promising to return, Olivia dares to dream of a future that defies society's expectations.
However, tragedy strikes Olivia's family, devastating her. Compounding her grief is the news that the manor is sold, leaving her homeless and jobless. With her younger brother Lachie to care for she is forced to seek work in the nearby bleak industrial town, and Olivia finds herself far from the countryside she loves-and from the man who captured her heart.
Desperate to keep Lachie out of the perilous coal mines, Olivia finds hope when she secures a position as housekeeper to Stephen Sheridan, a gifted but reclusive pianist haunted by his past. As danger follows her through the dark alleys of the town and Sheridan's secrets begin to surface, Olivia must decide who she can trust.
Torn between the memory of first love and the comfort of newfound companionship, Olivia faces an impossible choice. Can she build a new future from the ashes of her old life-or will love find its way back to her against all odds?
Set against a backdrop of social upheaval and changing fortunes, this is a poignant tale of love, loss, and the resilience of a young woman determined to forge her own destiny.

Author of over thirty-five novels, AnneMarie Brear has crafted sweeping historical fiction with atmosphere, emotion, and drama aplenty that will surely satisfy any fan of the genre. AnneMarie was born in a small town in N.S.W. Australia, to English parents from Yorkshire, and is the youngest of five children. From an early age she loved reading, working her way through the Enid Blyton stories, before moving onto Catherine Cookson's novels as a teenager. Living in England during the 1980s and more recently, AnneMarie developed a love of history from visiting grand old English houses and this grew into a fascination with what may have happened behind their walls over their long existence. Her enjoyment of visiting old country estates and castles when travelling and, her interest in genealogy and researching her family tree, has been put to good use, providing backgrounds and names for her historical novels which are mainly set in Yorkshire or Australia between Victorian times and WWII. A long and winding road to publication led to her first novel being published in 2006. She has now published over thirty-five historical family saga novels, becoming an Amazon UK best seller and with her novel, The Slum Angel, winning a gold medal at the USA Reader's Favourite International Awards. Two of her books have been nominated for the Romance Writer's Australia Ruby Award and the USA In'dtale Magazine Rone award and recently she has been nominated twice as a finalist for the UK RNA RONA Awards.AnneMarie lives in the Southern Highlands of N.S.W. Australia