Sunny's mundane country life is changed overnight when handsome, stylish Gray's Bentley breaks down outside her parents' cottage in Rushington. It seems that he may have fallen in love with her.Although Sunny herself remains unconvinced, her best friend Arietta believes that Sunny is soon to be set on the road to wealth and happiness. Shortly after meeting Gray for the second time at a local ball, Sunny is invited out by his close friend, the beautiful socialite, Leandra Fortescue, who tells her over lunch that Gray wants to marry her if she will accept certain conditions. Sunny does accept, even as Arietta is leaving Rushington to work in London. Sunny soon joins Arietta at her cheerfully chaotic lodgings. It is here that she realises that she can find the sort of contentment that has eluded sophisticates such as Gray and Leandra.Here too she meets Hart and, despite being engaged to Gray, falls in love with him, just as Arietta has fallen for his friend, jazz-playing...

Following the death of her seventeen-year-old mother in childbirth, Leonie Lynch is brought up in London's Eastgate Street by foster parents through the auspices of her godmother, the redoubtable Mrs Dodd, her living expenses provided for by her young mother's friend, Lady Angela Bentick.Mrs Dodd turns to Lady Angela when her godchild is nearing her eighteenth birthday. Lady Angela runs a fashionable nursing home and can provide Leonie with a profession, whilst Mrs Dodd offers her accommodation. Upon joining Lady Angela's staff as a nurse, Leonie meets our two other heroines -- Mercy Cordel and Dorinda Montgomery.Mercy grew up at the family home, Cordel Court in Somerset, and shortly after her seventeenth birthday, was brought up to London by her stepmother for the London Season. Dorinda Montgomery, on the other hand, has hardly ridden up and down Rotten Row more than a half a dozen times before she has captured the heart of every masher around town, and earns the sobriquet...

Christmas 1913. Kitty and Lady Partita are best friends despite vastly different backgrounds. Partita has invited her friend, Kitty, to stay at her ancestral home, Borders Castle. The grandeur of Partita's family seat is in stark contrast to Kitty's home in London where she and her mother, Violet, struggle to maintain appearances despite Kitty's father gambling away the family money. Kitty is introduced to the aristocracy; a fascinating, decorative and theatrical world. Kitty is enthralled and desperately wants to be part of this way of life, far removed from the genteel poverty in which she and her mother are forced to exist. But war breaks out, not only irrevocably changing society, but also the lives of these two beautiful young women. The headstrong Partita and down-to-earth Kitty become nurses and selflessly care for the men horrifically injured in the trenches of WWI. This novel is about the mothers and daughters, sisters and wives left at home holding things together on the homefront and caring for their men. It's about love and heartbreak, but most importantly of all, the remarkable nature of female friendship.

Twistleton is a village untouched by time, taking its rhythms from the countryside around. Daisy, Jean, Freddie and their friends Aurelia and Laura are devoted to the place, so that when war breaks out Twistleton becomes the embodiment of everything for which they are fighting. For the previous generation the new conflict causes private despair, increased when Twistleton is requisitioned by the Army. Turfed out of their houses, the villagers take refuge at the Hall. It is here that evacuees from the East End, butler and countryman weld together to fight common enemies, whether drunken troops in the village, the bombs from the air, or rationing and the bitter weather. They all know only victory will do. With death haunting their every moment, love is their one all-too-fleeting consolation -- and also their final triumph.

Brougham is the stateliest of stately homes, but for Lady Artemis Deverill it proves a lonely, loveless place. Eleanor Milligan, born in downtown Boston, knows only poverty and a continuing battle against bullying brothers and a sadistic father.From the moment Artemis and Ellie meet on a liner sailing to Ireland, they are destined to become friends. And when Eleanor's Cousin Rose asks not only Eleanor but also Artemis to stay on at Strand House, County Cork, it marks the start of what is for both of them an idyllic time.But with the arrival of the devastatingly handsome artist, Hugo Tanner, it seems as though nothing will be quite the same. For in the sunlit pre-war summer, all three become emotionally entwined, with startling consequences that threaten to haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Brought up in smalltown America by a grandmother who despises her, Cassie McGann's childhood is one of misery and rejection. Fleeing to New York she falls in love with handsome Irish racehorse trainer Tyrone Rosse, and when he marries her and takes her back to Claremore, his tumbledown mansion in Ireland, it looks as if she has found happiness at last. Passionately in love as she is, Cassie finds the all-male world of horses and racing rather lonely. There is much for her to learn, not least about the man she has married. Tyrone's success depends heavily on the whims of the rich owners, men - and women - who can be very demanding. And Cassie must learn to endure the enmity of one in particular, who comes out of her buried past determined to destroy her. When tragedy strikes, it seems that Cassie must once again face rejection and lose her hard-won security. But although the chances of success are slim and the cost in personal happiness considerable, she will not give in,...

As the eldest of four daughters, American heiress Emmaline Nesbitt has always understood that she is obliged to wed. But no proposals have so far come her way, until at a ball in her family home she meets Julius, a handsome and charming Englishman who wastes no time in proposing to her. Shortly after, Emmaline sails to England for her wedding. What awaits her on arrival is a long way from her expectations. She is brought to a strange house full of odd guests and eccentric servants - a far cry from the fine home Julius had promised - as well as a very different Julius. As the days go by, her fiancé changes beyond recognition, so much so that Emmaline believes there is no future to their relationship. But that is before Julius's past, and the history of his family and background make themselves plain to her.

Ottilie Cartaret is born in London into a family of boys dominated by their genial mother, Ma O'Flaherty. For the first four years of her life, all Ottilie knows is love until, that is, the erring father of the boys, the ever absent Mr O'Flaherty, sends enough money from America for the O'Flahertys to move to what Ma imagines will be rural bliss in Cornwall.True, St Elcomb is by the sea and in 1950s Britain is certainly rural but, for the O'Flahertys, it is not bliss. Never mind their poverty or the damp cottage which Ma has bought for them, the enmity of the local people is what proves insuperable.The family unit having been destroyed by Ma's death, Ottilie is adopted by Mr and Mrs Cartaret, a wealthy couple who run the Grand Hotel in St Elcomb. It is to these palatial surroundings that Ottilie is removed, away from her brothers and everything which she loves. Here she becomes pampered and spoilt, not just by her adopted parents but by all the visitors to the hotel, with...

Portia and Emily meet to launch their daughters on an unsuspecting Society for the London Season of 1913. Both are determined that their offspring, Phyllis and Edith, will catch the eye of their friend May's son, a future Duke. If that were all, the Season would be a relatively simple affair, but since Portia is recently widowed and Emily is away from her husband, life is bound to get more interesting. Meanwhile, their arch-enemy Daisy Lanford, fallen on hard times due to extravagance and too many lovers, is busy launching American heiresses. However, her protegee, Sarah Hartley Lambert, whilst an engaging girl, is not the wild success Daisy hopes for. This is largely due to the machinations of Phyllis, who, having formed an unholy alliance with Edith, is intent on spoiling the American girl's chances.As always, the Season is fraught with dangers for both the young and the middle-aged, while the old observe, knowing it has all gone on before. It will be a minor miracle if...

From the bestselling author comes a beguiling comic memoir about a young woman who discovers her father is a spy (and was the model for John le Carré's George Smiley) and goes to work as a secretary in 1950s MI5.It seems to me now that everyone who came to our house in those days was a spy. . .When Charlotte Bingham, daughter of an obscure aristocrat, was summoned to her father's office aged eighteen, she never expected to discover that this aloof, soberly-dressed parent was a spy. Even more ominous than The Facts was his suggestion that she should stop drifting around working for the sort of people her mother could never ask to dinner and get a proper job, something patriotic and worthwhile. So Lottie finds herself outside MI5's Mayfair offices in a dreary suit, feeling naked without her false eyelashes. Miserably assigned to the formidable Dragon, Lottie wishes for pneumonia, or anything to release her from the torment...

During the Second World War, Eastenders Miranda and Ted are sent to the country with another young evacuee, Roberta (Bobbie), to live with two unmarried sisters in their idyllic rectory. The time they spend with Aunt Sophie and Aunt Prudence turns their underprivileged lives into something very near to Heaven: gathering wool from hedgerows, initiating do and mend campaigns, and trotting about the countryside with Tom Kitten, Aunt Prudence's pony. But when the Committee for Evacuation object to the women's efforts to adopt all three of them, it is Bobbie who is sent away to live with the Dingwalls in very different circumstances. And when the aunts die, Miranda, Tom and Bobbie -- who have come to regard themselves as a family unit -- are eventually parted, seemingly forever. The three find each other after the war, and Miranda, now a beautiful young model, falls in love with grown-up Ted Mowbray, but unfortunately he can only think of her as a sister. In turn, he loves Bobbie,...

When Trilby meets Lewis, the all-powerful proprietor of a newspaper group, she suspects that her life might be about to change, but not, as it transpires, forever. For not only does Lewis wish to acquire her cartoon strip, but Trilby herself. She is inevitably drawn to this handsome, older, and far more sophisticated personality, just as Lewis is, from the first, determined to marry the insouciant Trilby, despite the opposition of her friends and family. But having won her, Lewis reveals himself to be irrationally possessive.Becoming a virtual prisoner in her own home is not something that Trilby had ever dreamt could happen to her, a young woman in 1950s London, but it is not long before she realises that Lewis is prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to keep her to himself. Quite by chance, she discovers the real reason for her husband's unforgivable behaviour. Trilby must come to terms with the truth about Lewis, and more importantly, herself, before she can experience...

When Alexandra Stamford goes to stay with her Millington cousins at Knighton Hall she knows nothing about the handsome stable lad they have cruelly nicknamed 'the oik'', nor is she destined to meet him until he is rich and successful. If Tom O'Brien is a servant, Alexandra herself is very much the poor relation, while the daughters of the house have beauty, status and wealth. Shortly after Alexandra's return home, her father re-marries. No longer wanted, Alexandra is forced to become a maid-of-all-work for a Mrs Smithers who lives in a grand Regency house in the seaside town of Deanford. Here she rapidly makes her mark among the impoverished ladies of the town, arranging romantic luncheons where they can meet wealthy widowers in comfort. It is through one of these occasions that handsome, funny Bob Atkins meets and falls in love with Alexandra.Despite her commitment to Bob, Alexandra is determined to make a success of her new life. Meanwhile Tom O'Brien meets and falls for the...

It is 1947, the worst winter in England since records began, and even the sea is frozen. For the women living in the little fishing port of Bexham, the chronic lack of everything from fuel to food has left them reeling.When Waldo Astley drives through thick Sussex snow into the village in his large American Buick, it is to find Bexham filled not just with grumbling residents, but frustrated wives and mothers forced back behind their stoves after the joy of the victory for which they fought so hard on the home front. Government directives have ensured that the returning men resumed the jobs their women managed so brilliantly through the gruelling years of war.But Waldo is no ordinary character, and while he has come to Bexham on a personal mission, his effect on all the residents is as warming as the electricity of which there is still such a shortage. For Judy, whose marriage to Walter has been badly affected by long years of separation; for Rusty, whose miscarriage has...