Following heavy casualties, General Townsend withdraws his exhausted troops to the town of Kut Al Amara, Iraq. His orders - to engage as many Turkish troops as possible in a siege situation. A relief force is hastily assembled, among them Charles Reid, Tom Mason and Michael Downe, for each of whom the advance is personal. Charles returns to the country where he lost the love of his life. Tom's brother John, an army surgeon, awaits execution. Michael's brother Harry, an army intelligence officer, is missing having never returned from his last mission. All three men wonder if they will ever see home and their wives again.

The market town of Everham is full of rumours and counter-rumours. Dr Leigh McDowall, medical registrar, is taking a refresher course in obstetrics. He is immediately attracted to Dr Shelagh Hammond, obstetric surgeon, but she is deeply involved with another doctor, Paul Sykes and is caring for her terminally ill mother, who has a secret of her own. Meanwhile Reverend Derek Bolt is troubled by the unwanted attentions of a female parishioner and he confides in headmaster Jeremy North. Set against the back-drop of the Profumo affair that rocked Britain, Everham's own politics reach a dramatic scandalous crescendo.

Four years on from discovering their true heritage, Sally and Luke have overcome their animosity to forge a trusting brother-sister relationship. So when Luke returns home from the Hong Kong police force, he asks Sally for help to prove the innocence of his friend Irish. But Sally already has her hands full. As well as tending her flourishing business empire, she must also pick up the pieces when her family - from her feckless sister Josie to her self-centred daughter Margo - runs into trouble. Moreover, she must put her own dreams on hold because the man she loves is not free to be with her.

After the collapse of his marriage, D/S Jimmy Suttle is plunged into a series of killings that will test him to the limit. Michael Corrigan has been shot through the head at the wheel of his car on a lonely moorland road. The only witness: his infant son, strapped into the rear child seat. Within days, two more killings, equally professional, and equally motiveless. Teasing some kind of investigative sense from this carnage is a very big ask, but pressure for an early arrest is growing by the day... Meanwhile, in the world of journalism, Suttle's estranged wife Lizzie finds herself within touching distance of the story that will make her name - but that story will lead her to the heart of Suttle's enquiry, and into mortal danger...

London, 1939: As WWII breaks out across Europe, teacher Louise Fairhurst and her class are evacuated from their school to the quiet farming village of Cottlesham. Uprooted and forced to start her life again, Louise finds herself acting as both mother and teacher to the group of anxious eight-year-olds. But just when they begin to settle into the country and their new surroundings, tragedy strikes... In Warsaw, Pilot Jan Grabowski must head to Romania to fight the enemy, leaving his wife Rulka behind. When Rulka sees Poland overcome by the Nazis, living in constant danger and amid cruel reprisals, she joins the Resistance. While back in England, Louise begins to wonder if perhaps she should have stayed in London - until a chance meeting with Jan alters her path, and their worlds collide forever.

Three sisters in 1920s Bermondsey struggle to make ends meet and protect their mother from the violence of their father. Milly, the eldest, works in Southwells jam factory. Elsie dreams of a career on the stage, while little Amy runs wild with her friends on the streets. As summer draws to a close, they join the hop pickers in Kent, for a short, blissful respite from a life of work and hardship. All three girls fear the terrible, unforgiving temper of their father, and their courageous attempts to protect their defenceless mother will have dramatic - sometimes disastrous - consequences for them all.

Spain is corrupt and on the brink of collapse. The king is ill, banks are closing, hospitals are in chaos, homes are lost, demonstrators riot and right-wing thugs patrol the streets. The tunnels below are at once a refuge and a source of anger. And as the blood flows, Camara roars in on his motorbike. He is back in Valencia, with his partner Alicia and his anarchist, marijuana-growing grandfather Hilario. In the old police headquarters, the mood is tense as the chief hunts for cuts - who will go, Camara or his friend Torres? The two men are flung into action investigating the suicide of an ex-bank clerk and the brutal murder of a young American woman. And as the city erupts around them, their case takes them into the heart of the trouble...

'Dr Deborah Serach Gold died on the cross sometime during a night of freezing rain in late October of my last year at Three. It probably wasn't the worst thing that happened to her that day, but it had been over two decades in the making...' The day after a terrible storm, electricity still crackling in the air, a woman is found dead on the outskirts of a Texan town. She has been brutally attacked and nailed to a cross. The victim is Dr Deborah Gold, a psychologist who has taken a lot of people's secrets to her grave. Which means a lot of suspects for Detective Jim 'Biscuit' Bonham to investigate. And lately he could use some psychological help himself...

Kitty Callaghan has plenty on her plate. Since her mother died when she was just a child, she's cooked, cleaned and scraped to make ends meet for her drunken father and her headstrong brothers. Rita Kennedy, living with her husband under the roof of her spiteful mother-in-law, is desperate for their own home. Perhaps that will help them get their marriage back on track? For the two women, and others like them on Liverpool's dockside, the threatening clouds of war will bring heartache and tragedy. It will take courage, and ties of friendship and family to see them through the dark days of war.

Eighteen-year-old Debbie Hargreaves is heading to college in Leeds, where she'll be sharing digs with three girls. Debbie soon becomes firm friends with shy Lisa, outspoken Karen and self-assured Fran. Over the coming months, the four flatmates will share tears and laughter and the drama of a new romance. At the same time, Debbie's birth mother, Fiona Norwood, is struggling to cope with four young children and her duties as a rector's wife. The arrival of a new childminder should be an answer to her prayers, but Glenda's open flirting with Fiona's husband soon gets tongues wagging. Is Fiona's marriage really under threat?

With the approach of war about to bring heartache to families all over England, Elsie Mead longs to do her duty for King and country. She heads to London to act as an interpreter for thousands of Belgian refugees. Although she enjoys her work, she longs to do more. And when the opportunity arises she joins the Foreign Office, travelling to France as an undercover agent. When circumstances force her to return home, she enlists in a volunteer corps. And on the battlefields of Europe she must find courage to help save lives, hoping that someday soon she'll be reunited with the man she loves.

One night, two senseless murders... DI Lorraine Hunt and her team are no strangers to serious cases - but the evidence seems to point to someone very close at hand... In this, the sixth of her Seahills crime novels, Sheila Quigley brings us back to the close-knit community in Houghton le Spring, County Durham. Her fans worldwide will not be disappointed...

The residents of Scotland Road fear for their futures when government plans threaten to demolish their street and tear apart their community. Polly's Parlour cafe is the centre for resistance, where strategies are formed to fight back. But when local priest Father Brennan attacks little Billy Blunt, minds are instead turned to vengeance. Frank Charleson, the local hero after saving Billy's life, is increasingly fond of Polly Kennedy. But with his mother's harsh behaviour towards his previous wife, can he put Polly through the same? Can Frank provide the support she needs? And is Polly strong enough to keep their community together?

When Heloise Goodley ditched her City job and decided to attend officer training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, she had no prior military experience. On her arrival she was a complete novice: she'd never fired a rifle; she couldn't march; she couldn't make her bed; she couldn't even shine her shoes. AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEWOMAN charts Goodley's absorbing journey through Sandhurst and on to Afghanistan, and gives an insight into the array of bizarre military behaviours and customs at this esoteric and hidden institution. With wit and sensitivity, Goodley details her experiences as a cadet and the painful transition from civilian to soldier. Moreover, she rejects lazy preconceptions and sheds new light on what has hitherto been a bastion of maleness - the British Army.

Alec, an academic recovering from the death of his wife, is staying in a quiet cottage by the sea when he starts to make his way through a package of papers and recordings given to him by a colleague. These concern the experiences of an individual known as Wiggy, who claims to have encountered not only a talking cat, but an evil, murderous, devil-worshipping talking cat who is part of a feline conspiracy spanning centuries. The story that then unfolds, told from a number of viewpoints and through various channels (including a hilariously terrible screenplay and imagined email exchanges), is so unusual, yet so terrifyingly plausible, that it demands to be told in a single sitting. 'Shall we start?' says the cat...

In the autumn of 1942, fifteen year old Ruby is collected from her aunt's guesthouse by her grandfather. She is taken to live with him in a village in industrial Lancashire, where a few days after her arrival a number of US Quartermaster Truck Companies of black troops take over a nearby camp. Before long tension rises between the newly arrived troops and the locals, many of whom still have embedded racial prejudices. As the town becomes divided, Ruby and her friends must struggle with adolescence, illicit love, dangerous friendships and the difficulty of doing what is right in a chaotic and unfair world.

Eleanor is seventeen when she goes to the Loire Valley on a French exchange. But the beauty of her surroundings is at odds with the family who live there. It is a family torn apart by the terrible legacy of the German occupation, and poisoned by the secrets they keep. Eleanor is drawn to Etienne, the dark and brooding owner, though his wife's malicious behaviour overshadows their lives. But when death comes to the vineyard, Eleanor finds her faith in her new-found love is tested to the limits.

1905: King Edward VII has invited himself and his mistress to a shooting weekend with the Dilbernes. Now Isobel, the Countess, must turn a run-down mansion into a palace fit for a king, but money can't resolve everything...not even a kidnapping. The servants refuse to condone the King's morals; Isobel's daughter, Lady Rosina, insists on publishing a scandalous book, and the mis-spent pasts of Viscount Arthur and his Irish-American wife Minnie rear up to blacken the family name. When fate deals a hand in the middle of the shooting party, Isobel must consider not only her leading position in Society, but her entire future.

Pru Plum is the celebrated owner of a famous Mayfair bakery. She wears Chanel and her hair is expensively cut. Few would believe that this elegant woman turned sixty-six last year. But Pru is not the confident, successful businesswoman she appears. She has done shameful things to get to where she is today. And she will do anything to protect the secrets of her past - especially when, for the first time in her life, she has finally fallen in love...

The four Latimer sisters are famous throughout New South Wales for their beauty, wit and ambition. They have always been close; always there for each other. They thought this would never change. But then they left home to train as nurses, swapping the feather beds of their townhouse for the spartan bunks of nursing accommodation. And now, as the Depression casts its shadow across Australia, they must confront their own desires as the world changes around them. Will they find the independence they crave? Or is life - like love - always bittersweet?

Since she was a child, Lucy Charlton has dreamed of working with her father in the family solicitor's firm. But when a scandal shatters her hopes, she finds herself on the streets, fighting for survival. Joe Hardy has returned to London after the Great War to find his life in tatters. Then Joe learns he's unexpectedly inherited an old river house in Durham from a mysterious stranger. With nothing left for him in London, he travels north to claim it. As their worlds collide, Lucy and Joe find comfort in their growing friendship. But the past comes back to haunt them, with shocking consequences...