Blackpool, 1942. Meet the Ballroom Girls: three girls dancing through the turbulence of WWII. Sylvia is the spoiled only child of an ambitious mother who runs a dancing school in Blackpool. Approaching 21, Sylvia is under pressure to scoop up prizes by fair means or foul. Pearl is the oldest daughter in a large, chaotic family who all work at the Pleasure Beach. She can only dream of joining the ballroom contestants in their glittery finery. Joy is an evacuee who lost her parents to the Blitz. Now she lives and works in a shabby boarding house. Though shy and modest, she falls in love with the newest dance craze - the American Jitterbug. When a rival dance school spots her talent, Joy is given a chance to enter the glamorous world of professional ballroom dancing. Through blackouts and air raids, will the Ballroom Girls find what they're looking for in the joy of the dance?

Sheffield, 1867. It's the height of a long-running and violent campaign known as the Outrages, where murderous acts are carried out on behalf of a rogue union leader. Louisa Leigh, a former maid-of-all-work, is trapped into prostitution and desperate for money to escape. She befriends Ginny Hinchcliffe, a young widow who will do whatever it takes to break free from a life of servitude to her in-laws. The two women become entangled with Joe Crookes, henchman to the man responsible for the Outrages. Joe is looking for a way out even if that means betraying those closest to him. With a single act, Louisa's freedom would be paid for. But it's not just her life on the line, and she'll need to decide if she can live with the choices she's about to make...

Liverpool, 1952. In the face of hardship, Bella Harrison is determined to see the bright side. She is back recording songs with her singing trio the Bryant Sisters, and against all odds, she and her husband Bobby are finding ways to muddle through life as newlyweds whilst raising little Levi, Bella's child with Black American pilot Earl Franklin Junior. Meanwhile, Earl's daughter Dianna is adjusting to her new life in Liverpool. Determined to forge her own path, she has her heart set on becoming a nurse. However, she soon discovers that the reality of nursing is long hours of gruelling work, under constant scrutiny from a matron who seems to take pleasure in making her life miserable. When a handsome art student catches her eye, Dianna finds herself at the crossroads between ambition and love...

After losing her beloved fiance Charlie Sayers at Ypres in 1917, seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Billington faces a lonely future, estranged from her upper-class parents due to her association with the working-class Sayerses. No longer able to live under her family roof, she is taken in by Charlie's father Harold, escaping the suffocating demands of her parents. Taking up a position at the Woolwich Arsenal munitions works, Betty is determined to support herself and pay her way - but a terrible accident results in her dismissal. Spotting an advertisement for a job at Woolworths, she embarks upon a new journey, starting at the bottom of the employment ladder in the well-known store. Her job leads her to Ramsgate in Kent to work in a newly built shop, and brings with it the chance of marriage - but can she ever forget Charlie and the promise she made to him...?

It's winter, and in the throes of a fierce blizzard Elsie Redfern and her husband discover an unknown girl in their hay barn, about to give birth. After the young mother dies, Elsie takes the infant in and raises her as her own daughter, her precious storm child. Gina grows into a beautiful little girl, yet her safe haven turns out to be anything but. Torn away from her home and family, the child finds herself in a nightmare from which there's no waking. However, despite her misery and bewilderment, she is determined to survive. Years pass. With Gina's womanhood comes the Second World War, along with more heartbreak, grief and betrayal. Then a new but dangerous love beckons. Can Gina ever escape the dark legacy of the storm child?

Following a humiliating experience involving the man she thought she'd marry, Iris Tredwick signs up to the Wrens in order to escape - and please her mother by finding the right sort of man. After a bumpy start, she befriends outspoken Mary and dreamer Sally as they are sent to their first posting in Orkney. There she meets mechanic Rob, whose flirtatious nature both charms and confounds strait-laced Iris. Much more appropriate for her is local doctor Stewart - if only she felt the same spark for him as she does for Rob... As Iris, Mary and Sally work to interpret signals from incoming ships, they realise the enemy is somehow one step ahead of their manoeuvres, dropping sea mines under the cover of darkness. Could there be a spy on the island? And can the Wrens prevent disaster striking before it's too late?

When her father dies, Abigail Newman is forced to leave her mother and the vicarage she was raised in and take up the position of governess to the son of Sir Hugh Hastings. Arriving at the grand estate of Bramley Court, Abi, who is concealing a heartbreaking secret, finds a family haunted by a tragic loss. But Bramley Court is also filled with secrets. Why is Sir Hugh's wife, Lady Imogen, so sure she can still hear the cries of the little boy she lost 18 months ago? And what is the history between the mysterious, glamorous visitor, Constance Bingham, and complex, charismatic Sir Hugh? As Abi weaves herself into the fabric of the house and family, she longs to help the people she's come to care for so deeply. Will they find peace and Abi heal her own broken heart?

Born into a family of successful pilots, Morag is used to flying high. But when a tragic accident above the clouds grounds her, could the future she'd always imagined be suddenly out of reach? When she receives a call telling her that her beloved grandfather has been taken ill, Morag leaves her fast-paced life in London to return home to the tranquil Scottish Highlands. She has no choice but to take over flying the local route in her grandfather's rickety old plane, ferrying locals across the beautiful islands of the archipelago. But as the weather takes a dramatic turn, Morag is forced to crash-land on a remote island. There she discovers Gregor, a gruff and reclusive ornithologist. Morag is forced to seek shelter at his cabin, and it seems the pair are stuck together until help arrives - however long that may be...

Blotto and Twinks are once again launched into another death-defying adventure, this time in the civil war-torn republic of Jalapeno, in Mexico. Desperate to escape her mother's match-making attempts Twinks sets out to visit her old friend, Begonia Guiteras, who lives close to an Aztec dig she wants to work on. Unfortunately, her visit coincides with the War for Jalapeno Independence, headed by Begonia's father. Twinks's excavation of the Aztec site is revealing the exciting prospect of a hoard of Conquistadors' gold - but will taking it away from the burial ground unleash the dreaded Curse of Attatotalloss? Into this confusion stumbles Blotto. On being reunited with Twinks they then discover Begonia has been kidnapped by Mexican government forces and both set out to rescue her. Will trusty chauffeur Corky Froggett, as so very often in past adventures, be able to save the day?

Summer, 1943. Daniel Berkak works as a courier for the Press and Military Office in Stockholm. On his last cross-border mission to Norway, he carries a rucksack full of coded documents and newspapers, but before he has a chance to deliver anything he is shot and killed and the contents of his rucksack are missing. The Norwegian government, currently exiled in London, wants to know what happened, and the job goes to writer Jomar Kraby, whose first suspect is a Norwegian refugee living in Sweden, with a past that is as horrifying as the events still to come...

Budding landscape architect Luisa MacGregor is stuck in a rut - she hates her boss, she lives with her sister, and she is still mourning the loss of her fiance many years ago. So when she is given the opportunity to take on a parcel of land in a deprived area, she sees the chance to build a garden that can make the area bloom. Arriving in the rundown seaside town of Collaton on the north-west coast of Cumbria, she realises that her work is going to be cut out for her. But, along with Cas, a local PE teacher, and Harper, a teen whose life has taken a wrong turn, she is determined to get the garden up and running. So when the community comes together and the garden starts to grow, she feels her luck might have changed. Can she grow good things on this rocky ground? And might love blossom along the way...?

During World War II there was a rumour that German spies were landing by parachute in Britain - disguised as nuns... Conradin Muller was an unusual spy. He was recruited in Hamburg in June 1943, much against his will, and sent on his first (and only) mission in late September that year. He failed to send a single report back to Germany, and when the war came to an end in May 1945, he fell to his knees and wept with relief. From this bewimpled spy who was drawn to an East Anglian convent as his only means of escape, to the strange tale of one of the Cambridge spy ring's adventures with a Russian dwarf, these are Alexander McCall Smith's intriguing and typically inventive stories from the world of espionage.