Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Forgotten Village / The Forgotten Wife | 2019 | Lorna Cook | Buy |
| 2 | The Forbidden Promise | 2020 | Lorna Cook | Buy |
| 3 | The Girl From the Island | 2021 | Lorna Cook | Buy |
| 4 | The Dressmaker’s Secret | 2022 | Lorna Cook | Buy |
| 5 | The Man I Never Met | 2022 | Lorna Cook | Buy |
| 6 | The Hidden Letters | 2023 | Lorna Cook | Buy |
| 7 | The Last Train Home | 2023 | Lorna Cook | Buy |
Lorna Cook’s standalone novels are dual-timeline stories that split the narrative between the present day and a moment in wartime history. Her debut, The Forgotten Village (2019), sold over 150,000 copies and won the RNA Joan Hessayon Award. Each book follows a similar structure: a contemporary woman discovers a connection to a forgotten chapter of history, and the story moves between the two periods as the truth comes to light.
The historical settings shift from book to book. The Forbidden Promise (2020) is set around a Spitfire crash in Scotland during 1940. The Girl From the Island (2021) takes place in Nazi-occupied Guernsey. The Dressmaker’s Secret (2022) draws on the French fashion world during the German occupation. The Hidden Letters (2023) moves the wartime thread back to World War I Cornwall.
Two books on the list — The Man I Never Met (2022) and The Last Train Home (2023) — are contemporary romances published under Cook’s pen name, Elle Cook. They drop the dual-timeline structure in favor of lighter, present-day stories. Between both names, Cook’s books have sold over 300,000 copies.