Magda's Daughter — Catrin Collier

The secret Magda carried to her grave threatens her daughter's happiness in this wonderful saga set in Pontypridd. Stateless and destitute after World War II, Magda Janek settled in Pontypridd, in the hope of building a new life for herself and her baby daughter, Helena. All Magda had to give Helena were the ambitions she had once cherished for herself; dreams cruelly snatched from her while she was still in her teens. But 1960s Pontypridd was a bright, vibrant, and very different world to the one Magda had been born into. At 21 Helena Janek had beauty, confidence, education, friends, and opportunities beyond even her mother's wildest imaginings. With a university degree behind her, a coveted teaching post in her old grammar school, and marriage to the love of her life, Dr. Eddie John, the son of an old Pontypridd family to look forward to, Helena couldn't have been happier. Until tragedy robbed her of the only family she had ever known and everything she had ever believed in; uncovering a bitter secret Magda had carried to her grave. A secret that threatened to destroy Helena's future, sanity, and love for Eddie just as surely as it had destroyed her peace of mind. And all Eddie could do was stand by impotently, no longer able to even reach Helena, let alone help her.