LADY PENELOPE

AUTUMN ALLEY

Gas lights and horse drawn buses, gin-soaked night clubs and fluttering lace curtains: enter the world of Autumn Alley. Here you'll find Maud, the formidable Irish-American suffragette and her neighbours, struggling to survive in a world of poverty in London's East End.

THE DANDELION SEED

Like a dandelion seed adrift on the wayward winds, Marcelle de la Strange is an innocent in the decadent and dangerous London of James I.

DOWN OUR STREET

With the outbreak of World War II the Flanagan family is shaken from their crowded nest in London's East End. The young ones are evacuated from the war-torn capital - the girls to Devon and the boys to a school in the Midlands they reckon is worse than Colditz! The war brings tragedy - but it's Amy, with her fierce courage and determination, who pulls the family back together in the turbulent years that follow.

EVE'S APPLES

When 12-year-old Daisy Smith steals a carrot for Jackie Murphy, an Irish barrow-boy, a love affair begins which will last for both their lives. Even when Jackie's family leave for Australia, Daisy cannot forget her childhood sweetheart. She determines to follow her love to Australia - and though Daisy and Jackie are destined never to marry, their love affair continues.

MAGGIE

Raised in Stepney, the heart of London's East End, Maggie Riley is the only child of an Irish widower. When she becomes pregnant at the age of fifteen she is delighted. But life is a constant struggle - to bring up her four sons, and to cope with a part-time husband. That struggle is set against critical events of the era: the Depression, the Blackshirt marches, the devastation of World War II and its aftermath.

OWEN OLIVER

In the heart of Victorian London, Owen Oliver walks out of his gloomy lodgings and doesn't stop his travels until he reaches Kent. There, he secures employment in a shipping agency and his fortunes start to increase. But Owen is not content. All around him he sees the helpless destitution of the poor. So when he takes the matter into his own hands and rescues a beautiful ragged child with haunting blue eyes and long golden hair, his fate is sealed . . .

QUEENIE'S CASTLE

On his release from prison on a wrongful charge of murder, Joe Walowski heads to the East End of London to find the real killers. There he meets the mysterious Queenie, proprietor of the Ship and Castle pub, and as he falls under her spell, he gradually becomes entangled in London's underworld.