Patience Tomlinson

Marguerite de Valois is the most beautiful woman in the French Court, and the subject of great scandal and intrigue. She loves Henri of Guise but is married off to the Huguenot Henry of Navarre. Within days of the wedding the streets of Paris are awash with blood in the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew.

A tale of family, secrets and lies, from a well-loved author - 1904, London. Lydia Daye adores her husband John, but his secret government job means he is often away. She consoles herself with her small son, Adam, and the knowledge that John?s salary allows them to live comfortably. Dolly Ellerway lives just two miles away, but in a different world. Pregnant, she is delighted when the father of her child says he?ll marry her, even though he can barely...

1835, England. Serafina Finn is conceived as the result of a love affair between a sea captain and a married woman, who dies giving birth to the child. Abandoned to an orphanage Serafina grows up being blown from pillar to post, never quite knowing who she is and longing for the security of belonging somewhere.

On the outskirts of Sedgewood village is Westways, a market garden run by Dennis and Kathie Hawthorne. In the summer of 1939 they are utterly content. But the pattern of her uncomplicated life is stirred by previously unknown emotions as her world falls apart around her.

Libby Sarjeant finds herself distracted from involvement with her local pantomime by her friend Harry, who asks her to help a friend of his who has been receiving threatening letters. At first she believes it to be a simple case of prejudice, but soon Libby uncovers links to particularly nasty crimes in the past.

Careless words can cost lives and wicked words certainly do. A sense of justice is felt amongst Bath hoteliers when an unpopular hotel reviewer is found dead stuffed inside a giant teddy at the bottom of an open grave. Originally published: Sutton: Severn House, 2010