Emma Hornby Books In Order

Publication Order of Worktown Girls at War Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Emma Hornby is a bestselling author of sagas fiction from England. She loves to refer to herself as a mother of three that was born to a tight-knit family on a working-class estate in Bolton in the United Kingdom.
She has said that she has always been passionate about history and growing up, she was often found with her nose buried in sagas fiction.

Before she became a novelist, she used to work a variety of jobs including working in a tock factory in Blackpool and taking care of the elderly among many other jobs.

She would then start writing nonfiction pieces and short stories for the stage, print, and the internet in addition to working as a freelance poet. “A Shilling for Wife,” her debut work was first published in 2017.

Like many of her contemporaries, Emma Hornby was always passionate about writing and she was still a teenager when she began jotting down her poetry.

After she had several short fiction pieces and some of her poems accepted for publishing, she made the decision to try her hand at long-form fiction writing.

She had spent years researching her family history and found it fascinating. Many of her ancestors had eked OUT a living in the squalid slums of Manchester and Bolton.

Emma Hornby used to spend hours imagining what their life would have been like. She pictured the faceless people and wondered about their daily struggles, their relationships, hopes, fights, and loves.

Her mind would become filled with imaginary scenarios as she started writing down snippets and immersed herself in a lot of research into the time. This resulted in an overflowing trunk full of all manner of ideas she hopes she will one day publish.
But it also resulted in her debut fiction work “A Shilling for a Wife.” While she enjoys writing in just about any genre, her favorite has to be sagas fiction which she most prefers to write and read.

Since Emma Hornby always loved the Victorian era and read a lot of sagas fiction, it was inevitable that she would pen historicals when she got the author bug. As for her settings, she chose to set her books in Lancashire given its interesting and rich past.
Still, her journey toward publication was never so easy and after penning several manuscripts she decided to send her favorite one to agents and publishers.

After several rejections, she became so used to them that she often expected the agent to say no every time. But she was surprised when one literary agent in London liked her manuscript and sent an email saying she would like to talk about it.
Within no time, she had been signed on by the agent and soon she was dealing with several weeks of emails and calls. Her work would then get into auction with publishers throwing all manner of offers her way.

It was finally bought by Transworld, a division of Penguin Random House which is where one of her all-time favorite authors was also signed. Most of Emma Hornby’s novels that followed would go on to be just as successful as her first.

“Her Wartime Secret” by Emma Hornby is a work set in 1940 in the town of Bolton in Lancashire. It tells the story of a family held together by a secret, even if torn apart by war.

Janie and James her husband have a loving and strong marriage despite the many challenges they are facing. A move from one of the most squalid slums in the city to a new estate on the outskirts ought to have been a fresh start for the family.
However, when war breaks out and James tells his family that he has signed on, Janie fears that it could be the end of everything they have achieved.

Most families across the country are making the sacrifice and waving goodbye to their brothers, fathers, and sons and Janie does her best to survive and forge new friendships in her community.

In the course of time, James comes home, desperate and traumatized, and soon after goes missing and her heart goes out to him. She will do everything to ensure his safety and when she finds him, she hides him in their new house.
But just how long can they manage to keep their secret and what will happen when they are found out?

It makes for a brilliant page-turner about secrets, friendship, and love that has been compared to the novels from the likes of Rosie Goodwin and Katie Flynn.

Emma Hornby’s novel “A Daughter’s War” is the second novel of the “Worktown Girls at War” series of novels. Just like many of her other novels, this work has been compared to novels by Rosie Goodwin and Dilly Court.
The lead in the novel is Renee Rushmore, a seventeen-year-old who lives with Ivan her father who is famous for his cruelty. Everyone in the community knows that he rules his house with an iron fist and that he keeps his daughter alone and isolated.
She could not have been more desperate to escape but she does not have any friends who could offer help and hence she does not have any hope of her life ever getting better.

When war finally breaks out, Renee thinks that she can finally get her chance at escape as farms and factories are looking to hire female workers.

When Jimmy a local farmhand informs her that Oak Valley Farm is looking for workers, she believes this is just the opportunity that she was looking for. But it will not be so easy as her father’s hawk eyes are always on her.
Still, with the help of her new friend Jimmy, she may just be able to find happiness and escape her father’s cruelty.

“A Shilling for a Wife” by Emma Hornby is an absorbing and powerful story that has been compared to the works of the likes of Maggie Hope and Dilly Court.

The lead in the novel is Sally Swann who believes things could not get any worse until they did. Sally has been imprisoned in a dismal cottage in Lancashire’s Bolton area ever since she had been married to Joseph Goden.

Her husband is a bully and drunkard who uses threats and fists to keep her in check and rules with a rod of iron. When she gets her first kid, she knows that she will have to escape and get the child and herself from under her husband’s evil clutches.
She ultimately manages to escape with her baby and leaves for Manchester to find her only relative. However, the threat of discovery remains as her husband remains determined to do anything to find her.

She will need to do everything in her power to protect herself and her son so that she can finally be with a man who truly loves her. However, it is usually impossible to get a fresh start without paying a huge price.