A desirable semi-detached house harbours a dreadful scene. The strains of a funeral mass carry a warning to two young lovers. A bridegroom swears that death itself would not part him from his intended; another man's wife proves this true. Spirits of long-ago women reach out across the years, whilst a corpse refuses to leave its murderer alone. Waxworks appear so lifelike, it's as if they are about to rise and walk - meanwhile, marble effigies in a village church are rumoured to do precisely that. Welcome to that other world which beats a constant undercurrent beneath our own - the world which knows the power of darkness.
The Reverend Tobias Campion returns from morning service on Easter Day and makes a grisly discovery: a corpse nailed to a tree. Together with his old friend, Dr Hansard, he pledges to expose the truth - though it means uncovering secrets the hostile villagers would prefer to keep hidden. Questioning the offended and resentful gentry as well, the pair hears whispers of Satanism, unsavoury pasts, and sinister obsessions. Before long, an attempt is made to silence their enquiries; Tobias, injured but no less determined, realises he must be close to the truth if someone wants him dead. With friends and colleagues either unable or unwilling to help, Tobias is forced to confront his own demons, and ask for help from the last person on earth he wants to meet again...
Omar is an orphaned Palestinian born into chaos, displaced by violence, and driven by forces beyond his control to find his place in the world. He only has one thing to hold on to: a love that propels him forward and gives him hope. Nadia is maturing into womanhood in a refugee community in Damascus. She tries hard to cope with the tough realities of her world, but she is confronted with a cruel load thrust upon her by a selfish brother. Will she break out of her traditional social mould to create her own destiny?
Maia Etxeleku is a cleaner for ladies who lunch. With mop and bucket in tow, she spends her days dashing from house to house cleaning up after them, as they rush from one exhausting Pilates class to the next. But an unusual inheritance catapults her and her children into the very exclusive world of Stirling Hall School - a place where no child can survive without organic apricots and no woman goes a week without a manicure. As Maia and her children, Bronte and Harley, try to settle into their new life, she is inadvertently drawn to the one man who can help her family fit in. But is his interest in her purely professional? And will it win her any favours at the school gate?
Lark has been wandering the country for many years, with no real place to call home. Then she meets Matthew Williams, a Canadian who has inherited a run-down hill farm in North Wales. Young and enthusiastic, Matthew has no knowledge of farming and no experience of living in the countryside. Entranced by the beauty and wildness of the place, Lark agrees to help, and together they throw themselves into getting the farm onto its feet. Until a terrible accident brings Matthew's father over from Canada, and suddenly none of their lives will be the same.
Connie Byrne, a nurse in London's East End, working alongside Millie Sullivan from Call Nurse Millie, is planning her wedding to Charlie Ross, set to take place as soon as he returns from the war. But when she meets him off the train at London Bridge, she finds that his homecoming isn't going to go according to plan. Connie's busy professional life, and the larger-than-life patients offer a welcome distraction, but for how long?
Married four times, Susannah Forbes once had an enviably starry career as a top model, mixing with luminaries and legends like Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe and JFK. Her last marriage left her extremely well-off, and she is discovering that life as a rich, sought-after, still-beautiful widow has its compensations. Now, with an instinctive eye for colour and design, she finds herself in constant demand as an interior decorator. Offered a commission by a recently divorced American to make over his lavish Long Island home, Susannah accepts, bringing as her assistant a young divorcee, Daisy Mitchell. But below the surface, insecurity and infidelity are rife...
Puglia, Italy, 1921: Leandro returns home, now a rich man with a glamorous American wife. But how did he get so wealthy - and what haunts his outwardly exuberant wife? Boyd, a quiet English architect, is hired to build Leandro's dreams. But why is he so afraid of Leandro? Clare, Boyd's diffident wife, is summoned to Puglia with her stepson. At first desperate to leave, she soon finds a compelling reason to stay. Ettore, starving, poor and grieving for his lost fiancee, is too proud to ask his Uncle Leandro for help - until events conspire to force his hand. Tensions are high as poverty leads veterans of the Great War to the brink of rebellion. And under the burning sky, a reckless love and a violent enmity will bring brutal truths to light...
Zena Martin and her brother, Greg, are content with their lives and plans for their future: Zena and Jake Williams are about to announce their engagement, and Greg hopes to persuade Rose Conelly to meet his family and begin the next stage of their relationship. Then their father dies suddenly and secrets come to light that change everything. Zena begins to doubt her happiness with the kind-hearted Jake when his generosity is more for others than for her. Greg is distressed when Rose leaves the town without any explanation. But it is their mother's secret that is hardest to understand. And when everything is revealed and explanations are offered, what will be left of their once optimistic future?
It's the summer of 1984, and there is a sense of unease on the troubled Sweetmeadows estate. The residents are in shock after the suspicious death of a baby, and tension is growing due to the ongoing miners' strike. Journalist Clare Jackson follows the story as the police bungle the inquiry and struggle to contain the escalating violence. Haunted by a personal trauma she can't face up to, Clare is shadowed by nine-year-old Amy, a bright but neglected little girl who seems to know more about the incident than she's letting on. As the days go by and the killer is not found, Clare ignores warnings not to get too close to her stories - and, in doing so, puts her own life in jeopardy.
Assigned to drive holidaymakers to the seaside resort of Blackpool in the hot summer of 1905, Jim Stringer is happy to have left behind the grime and danger of life in London. But his dreams of beer and pretty women are soon shattered - when his high-speed train meets a huge millstone on the line. In the months that follow, as he hunts for the saboteur, Jim is drawn into a beguiling but dangerous world of eccentrics, conmen and cowards. From ventriloquists to funfair salesmen, ticket clerks to dandies, everyone is a suspect...
Six new stories about the full-time priest and part-time detective, set in 1960s Cambridge. On a snowy Thursday morning in Lent 1964, a stranger seeks sanctuary in Grantchester's church, convinced he has murdered his wife... Sidney attends a shooting weekend in the country with his wife Hildegard, where they find their hostess has a sinister burn on her neck... A firm of removal men "accidentally" drops a Steinway piano on a musician's head outside a Cambridge college... Sidney's friend Amanda receives threatening pen letters when at last she appears to be approaching matrimony... During a cricket match, a group of schoolboys blow up their school's science block... And on a family holiday in Florence, Sidney is accused of the theft of a priceless painting.
Lacey Carmichael leads a solitary life. To her neighbours she is the mad old woman who lives at the end of the lane, crazy but harmless - until she is arrested on suspicion of murder... When Rachel Moore arrives in the village, escaping her own demons, the two women form an unlikely bond. Unravelling to each other tales of loss and heartache, they become friends. Rachel sees beyond the rumours, believing in Lacey's innocence; but as details of the older woman's life are revealed - some of them monstrous, from a past filled with the ignorance and cruelty of others - Rachel is left questioning where the truth really lies.
Summer appeared from nowhere that year in Everdene; and for those lucky enough to own one of the beach huts, this was the summer of their dreams. For Elodie, returning to Everdene means reawakening the memories of one summer fifty years ago. A summer when everything changed... Vince and his brother are struggling to come to terms with the death of their father, but they have very different ways of coping... And for Jenna, determined to put the past behind her, the opportunity to become the 'Ice-Cream Girl' once again might just turn her life around. But this summer is not all sunshine and surf - as secrets unfold, and some lives are changed forever...
After graduating in millinery, identical twins, Sinead and Sheila Fields, open their own hat shop. It's only a small business, until a glamorous young actress buys one of their hats and wears it to the BAFTAs. Suddenly, success seems guaranteed. Then tragedy strikes when Sheila disappears and is presumed dead. After months of desolation, Sinead is just beginning to come to terms with her loss when there is a sighting of her sister. She is filled with excitement but also haunted by questions. Why would Sheila have deserted her twin without a word?
Faith works in a fabulous PR company, has loads of gorgeous, glamorous friends and, best of all, a handsome boyfriend. He never wants to watch the football, and thinks Faith is the most beautiful girl in the whole world. The only problem is, he doesn't exist. Faith has made him up, just like she's made up her perfect life. It's what she does. She's a single, lonely, low-paid make-up girl, and it's far too late to tell her family the depressing truth. Except that her sister has just got engaged, which means she's finally run out of reasons why her family can't meet her perfect, imaginary man. It's time to turn fantasy into reality...
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...
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