Dottie Perks has forged a new life for herself in London, with a new job and a loving boyfriend. She's safe, happy and loved. What more could she ask for? But when Dottie visits her home in Brighton, the last person she expects to see is her first love, Ralph Bennett. As old feelings come rushing to the surface, Dottie struggles to deny the strong chemistry between them. She can't throw away everything to be with Ralph...can she?

When Cissy Ryan’s real mother comes to claim her from the workhouse, it’s not how she imagined. Her family’s tumbledown cottage has ice on the inside of its windows and is in an isolated, poverty-stricken village in the muddy Irish countryside. But when Cissy is allowed to help neighbour Colm Doyle and his horse named Blue on their milk round one morning, Cissy starts to feel as though friendship could get her through anything.

Ireland, 1924. For 13-year-old Nora Doyle every day is a fight for survival in Ballybun, the rural Irish village she calls home. Each night, as she feels the cold wind blowing through the cracks of her family’s cramped cottage, Nora longs to escape the poverty surrounding her and find her place in the world. When she meets Edward, from the grand house that looms over her tiny village, she feels an unlikely kinship that is impossible to explain, and as she grows from an impulsive child into a beautiful woman, Nora spends every moment she can with him. 

London, 1942: Thirteen-year-old Nell and five-year-old Olive are being sent away from home to escape the devastation of the East End during the Blitz. Leaving behind their beloved mother and brothers, they don’t know if they will ever see them again. As the sisters adjust to their new life in a close-knit Welsh village, they gradually find hope in the friendships they make. And Nell kindles a special bond with fellow evacuee Jimmy, who makes her smile even at the hardest of times. But when little Olive’s safety is threatened, Nell makes a decision that will change their lives forever. 

It was a summer of love and a summer of secrets. She has built a good life: a husband who adores her, a daughter she is fiercely proud of, a home with warmth and love at its heart. But things were not always so good, and the truth is that she has done things she can never admit.

An enchanting and nostalgic tale of Ireland in the 1950s by Ireland’s favourite writer, Alice Taylor. The Phelans have owned Mossgrove for generations. The small, rural Irish farm has been the pride of them all until Ned's wife, Martha, arrives and begins to undermine generations of hard work and happiness. She resents the deep history of the place and sets about making it her own, shutting out what is left of Ned's family. She is particularly jealous of Ned's sister, Kate, a local nurse and doting aunt to Martha's children. 

The white-washed Italian villa is perfect. I thought it might feel odd, living in a stranger’s house for the summer, but as my husband and children swim in the infinity pool, I start to relax. And then, in the back of a wardrobe, I find something that shatters everything.... Sparkling green eyes, square jaw, lopsided smile. A young man with his arm around a beautiful woman. The picture is old and faded, but I’d recognize him anywhere. The man is my husband.

New York City, 1922. Harp Devereaux is torn. Part of her desperately wants to return to Ireland to finish what she and her family and friends started and to witness the departure of the British forces from Ireland after eight hundred long years. But the other part finds life in America during the Roaring Twenties too exciting to trade for the sleepy streets of County Cork. She and John Joe are united and determined to sample all that life after the Great War has to offer, but life Stateside is not as free and easy as Harp first imagines.

Queensland, Australia, 1936. Sister Claire McAuliffe has been called from Dungarvan, County Waterford, to do God’s work in Jumaaroo, Queensland. Along with four other sisters, she is charged with setting up a Catholic school for the education of the gold rush families. But life between the tropical Australian rainforest and the azure ocean is far from the spectacular paradise it seems. Sister Claire finds life challenging in more ways than she can count, but far more worrying is the constant presence of the much-loved mayor of Jumaaroo, Joseph McGrath.

When her husband doesn’t come home one day, Ariella realizes that the only way she can ensure her Jewish children’s safety is to avail of the Kindertransport, but can she bear to let them go? A thousand miles away, Elizabeth Klein has closed herself off from the world. Losing her husband on the last day of the Great War and her child months later, she cannot, will not, love again. It hurts too much. But she is all Liesl and Erich Bannon have.

Growing up in New York City in the 1910s, Luella and Effie Tildon realize that even as wealthy young women, their freedoms come with limits. But when the sisters discover a shocking secret about their father, Luella, the brazen elder sister, becomes emboldened to do as she pleases. Her rebellion comes with consequences, and one morning Luella is mysteriously gone.

As Samantha Wishaw watches the love of her life marry another woman, she’s ready to give up hope of finding her happy ever after. But when a chance encounter leads Sam to find friendship in Thomas - a lonely, grumpy elderly widower living at derelict Hedgehog Hollow - her life is about to change forever. Glad to have a distraction from family feuds and match-making, Sam vows to fulfill Thomas and his wife Gwendoline's dreams of restoring Hedgehog Hollow to its former glory, and to open a hedgehog rescue centre.

Following a humiliating experience involving the man she thought she’d marry, Iris Tredwick signs up to the Wrens in order to escape and - hopefully - find ‘the right sort’ of man to please her mother. After a bumpy start, Iris manages to befriend outspoken Mary and dreamer Sally as they are sent to their first posting - in Orkney. There she meets engineer Rob, whose flirtatious nature both charms and confounds straight-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.

Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro grow up as the best of friends despite their differences. Elisabetta is a feisty beauty who dreams of becoming a novelist; Marco the brash and athletic son in a family of professional cyclists; and Sandro a Jewish mathematics prodigy, kind-hearted and thoughtful, the son of a lawyer and a doctor. Their friendship blossoms to love, with both Sandro and Marco hoping to win Elisabetta's heart.

In the spring of 1942, young Elzbieta Rabinek is aware of the swiftly growing discord just beyond the courtyard of her comfortable Warsaw home. She has no fondness for the Germans who patrol her streets and impose their curfews, but has never given much thought to what goes on behind the walls that contain her Jewish neighbors. She knows all too well about German brutality - and that it's the reason she must conceal her true identity. But in befriending Sara, Elzbieta makes a discovery that propels her into a dangerous world of deception and heroism.