Olivia Manning

First book in the 'Levant Trilogy'. Guy and Harriet Pringle, a newly married couple, have been cut off from England by events in Europe. As Rommel advances, their lives steadily become more precarious, and they face the prospect of capture and separation from each other.

A sweeping adaptation of Olivia Manning's classic war novels, starring Joanna Lumley and Honeysuckle Weeks

1939, and naive young newlywed Harriet Pringle arrives in Bucharest with her husband, Guy - just as Europe is about to rip itself apart. She believes she knows everything about the man she has married, but soon realises she knows nothing.

Guy is oblivious to her needs and desires, seeming only to care about his job as a university lecturer, his friends, and the beautiful, voluptuous Sophie. Struggling to build a life in a strange city, in the face of imminent invasion, Harriet feels bereft - and increasingly isolated.

As the Nazis come ever closer, an act of treachery puts the couple in terrible danger, and with Romania in enemy hands, they are forced to leave the country. Fleeing to Athens, and then Egypt, their marriage comes under increasing strain amidst the chaos and upheaval of war. With the future uncertain, can they find the strength and resilience to face it together?

Joanna Lumley stars as the older Harriet, looking back on events many years later, with Honeysuckle Weeks as her younger self. Among the stellar cast are Khalid Abdalla, Alex Wyndham and James Fleet.

Book 3 of the 'Balkan' trilogy, sequel to: 'The Spoilt City' (9372). Having fled Nazi-occupied Romania, Harriet Pringle arrives in Athens, where she anxiously waits for news of her husband, Guy, trapped in Bucharest.

First book of the Balkan Trilogy. Newly married Guy and Harriet Pringle arrive in Bucharest in the autumn of 1939, where Guy is to teach English at the university. They find a city of contrasts, peopled with a cast of sometimes eccentric characters and overshadowed by the tension of war.

Book 2 of the 'Balkan' trilogy, sequel to 'The Great Fortune' (9374). It is 1940, the phony war is over and the Pringles are finding their position in Bucharest even more precarious, with invasion by the Germans an ever present threat..

Book 3 of the 'Levant Trilogy' sequel to 'The Battle Lost and Won', (9965). As the British fight a desperate battle against the German forces in Egypt, Guy and Harriet Pringle are involved in their own personal struggle with their marriage.