The Nolan Family Books in Order

The Nolan Family novels step back a century from Jean Fullerton's wartime books to Victorian East London. Beginning in the 1830s around Shadwell, Wapping and Stepney, they follow two intertwined Irish Catholic families, the O'Caseys and the Nolans, as they try to carve out better lives in a city growing richer while its slums grow more crowded.

In No Cure for Love, young widow Ellen O'Casey washes laundry by day and sings in packed, smoky pubs by night to keep her ailing mother and teenage daughter fed. Local gangster and slum landlord Danny Donovan sees her as another prize to control. The arrival of Robert Munroe, an idealistic new doctor, brings both the hope of love and a dangerous ally in Ellen's fight against Danny's hold over the neighbourhood.

A Glimpse At Happiness moves the focus to Ellen's daughter Josie, returning from twelve years in America. She discovers that her childhood sweetheart Patrick Nolan is not only alive but engaged to someone else, while her own family's improved status puts her awkwardly between polite society and the riverside streets she once called home. Criminal matriarch Ma Tugman and her empire loom over every attempt Josie and Patrick make to be together.

In Perhaps Tomorrow Mattie Maguire, a twenty six year old widow with a baby son, runs the family coal business near the docks. Wealthy speculator Amos Stebbins wants her yard for a new railway extension and is willing to use intimidation to get it. Mattie's battle to save her livelihood brings her into contact with both new friends and new enemies, forcing her to weigh security against independence.

The final volume, Hold on to Hope, centres on Kate Ellis, who has built a cafe and a stable home for her children while her husband Freddie serves a prison sentence. Freddie's release threatens the hard won respect she has earned, just as former army captain Jonathan Quinn arrives to take up a position as headmaster. Kate's choices carry not only emotional weight but real risks in a community where reputations can make or break a business.

Together, the four novels show how love, ambition and loyalty play out against a backdrop of dockside labour, backstreet chapels, music halls and ruthless landlords.

Readers can expect romance, yes, but also strikes, court cases and the grinding reality of poverty in nineteenth century London. Characters reappear, age and change from book to book, so the series rewards being read in order, though each story provides its own complete, satisfying arc.