Kirjahaku

Starting an affair with Robert is easy. Bored with the awkward, boorish single men of her own age and flattered by the confident attentions of a handsome stranger, Harriet is excited by the idea of a lustful friendship, as Robert chooses to describe it. A commitment-free fling is ideal, and the existence of a wife is a minor inconvenience. But then Harriet finds out about his other mistress...

A cantankerous, elegant old woman sits in her beautiful Somerset house while her family secretly plots to evict her. In the garden is Lady Pamela's last loyal retainer, out at grass is her one remaining racehorse, and in London is the man she should have married - still her dearest friend.Maeve Delaney, streetwise and outrageous, and sole applicant for the job of companion to Lady Pamela, bursts into the old house like a firework. As open warfare settles into an wary truce between the two women, Maeve sets her heart on bringing the great racehorse, Irish Dancer, out of retirement, and everything changes.

In April, when blackthorn blossom clothes the hedgerows like a wedding veil, there sometimes comes a frost so severe that it seems as if the summer will never come. Country people call this a blackthorn winter.For Claudia Barron, arriving in the Dorset village of Court Barton that April, blackthorn winter seems like a metaphor for everything that has happened to her. Hiding from her previous life, she adopts an assumed name and applies for a job in the local school. But villages don't much like mysteries and secrets and soon the inhabitants of Court Barton set out to find out what it is that Claudia Barron is hiding from and why.

Kate and Josh Hutchins have lived on Dancing Hill Farm in Dorset for thirty years. Here they have brought up three children, expected to grow old, and imagined they would pass the farm on to one of their boys, like generations of family before them. But things have not gone to plan. Neither of their sons wants the farm, their daughter is in love with a man with no real liking for the countryside, and Dancing Hill itself is no longer the profitable place it was once.And Kate is restless. Longing for some time to herself, dreaming of what she might have achieved had she not married so young. When her children give her a week's painting holiday in Provence she seizes it like a lifeline, hardly realising what a dangerous thing it is that she is doing.

Point-to-point jockey Jess Haddon has maintained a resolute silence about the identity of the father of her little daughter, Izzy. But that hasn't stopped the rumours swirling around their small Dorset village. Izzy's adoring grandmother Belinda is not the only one who believes Jess must have had a fling with charming Johnnie Bearsden before he moved to America with his family.Belinda is certain Jess's secret cannot be kept for ever. And when she discovers Johnnie is back in the area, she knows everything is about to change. Sooner or later the story must break, and when it does, there will surely be terrible consequences.

When Emily Kingsley arrives at the church for her eccentric Great Aunt Mary's funeral, she is still grieving for her broken relationship with the vain, mean and unfaithful Ted, and has little sorrow to spare. At the wake afterwards, she is dismayed to learn the content's of Mary's will. Emily and her cousin Clemmie must go to Mali, where they are to travel by camel into the Sahara Desert to scatter her ashes.Clemmie, fanciful and rootless, is thrilled at the chance of adventure. Emily is not. With immense reluctance, she agrees to travel to Mali, and find Timadjlalen, a place in the desert that no one has ever heard of. Why Mary chose it as her final resting place she cannot imagine, and the thought of a hot, pointless trip is almost too much to bear. But once Emily and Clemmie set foot on the Saharan sand, and begin to uncover Mary's sixty-year-old secret, they come to understand why they must complete her journey...

When schoolgirl Jodie Foot goes missing from a sleepy Dorset village, the shockwaves that reverberate through her community are as far-reaching as they are devastating. When Rachel Turner finds out her husband has lied about his whereabouts that evening, she is shattered. All she's ever wanted is a secure family life, and now it's about to be torn apart. Henry Streeter, Rachel's neighbour, is overwhelmed by old feelings of misery and loneliness as he struggles to stifle painful memories of his own childhood. And Juliet Fairweather, arriving in the village on the evening of the disappearance, is involved in an unexpected personal drama, while her mother, Bobbie, so often a bystander, is drawn inexorably into other people's lives. For everyone involved, one ordinary summer's day will bring extraordinary consequences and the need to examine their own sense of loss and longing.

A warm and riveting tale of the fierce bonds of motherhood Florence has never forgiven Jane for the circumstances of her birth. She was an accident, the product of Jane's first and only one-night-stand, and Flo does not want to know how hard her teenage mother fought to keep her. When Flo's own, carefully planned, baby arrives, and her glossy, controlled world is turned upside down, for the first time in her life she turns to her mother for help. Holding her newborn grandson, Jane is suddenly overwhelmed by memories she's buried for decades of the tumultuous year when Flo was born: her parents' fury, the new freedoms of 1960s London passing her by, and the rash consequences of the overwhelming love for her child.

The perfect family celebration requires the perfect family...Alice Dunlop knows the best things in life are free. But the approach of her 40th wedding anniversary and 60th birthday surely warrants a proper celebration. With visions of a glorious family gathering complete with a marquee, champagne and beautiful sunshine, Alice has big plans for the big day. Her husband David isn't so enthused. He seems to have lost his lust for life since retiring from his job. And he's not the only one who isn't in the mood to celebrate. Each of Alice and David's four grown-up children has their own problems to contend with and things aren't going as smoothly as any of them had hoped. As Alice focuses on preparations for the party, her family begins to unravel around her. Even her husband's sudden rise from apathy isn't as great a blessing as it first appears. It's only a matter of time before Alice's special day is at risk of disaster...

Sometimes, the end of a journey is just the beginning...Emily and Clemmie's lives changed for ever when they took their great aunt's ashes to rest in a strange and exotic land. Clemmie stayed behind to begin a new life in the Mali desert, but now Emily fears for her cousin's safety. Returning to Africa with her new husband and two friends, she is determined to find out why Clemmie seems so desperately to need her help. Divinity is travelling to Mali to satisfy her curiosity about the land her father came from, and to source new materials for her design company. She doesn't expect the chaos and adventure she finds - nor the danger that seems to grow as her little group begin to make its way across the desert towards Clemmie...