It's 1939, and three ten-year-old girls meet on a station platform. Imogen, Rita and Debby all missed the original evacuation and now the authorities are finding it difficult to place them. When Auntie and her niece, Jill, who run the Canary and Linnet Public House, offer to take them in, the billeting officer is greatly relieved. The countryside i

Aunt Margaret, surrogate mother to Saskia for 17 years, waves goodbye to her niece, who is off to Canada for a year. Margaret decides to kick up her heels and have some fun, and takes a lover for a year as part of the enterprise.

Dulcie Mainwaring's friend Viola is besotted by Dr Aylwin Forbes, so surely it isn't prying if she helps things along? Aylwin, however, is smitten by Dulcie's young niece. And perhaps Dulcie herself is falling, just a little, for Aylwin.

Alice is an 18-year-old student and aspiring novelist with green spiky hair, a child of the modern age who recoils at the idea of reading Jane Austen. In a sequence of letters reminiscent of Jane Austen's to her own niece, 'aunt' Fay examines the rewards of such study. Not only is her correspondence a revealing tribute to a great writer - it is also an original and rewarding exploration of the craft of fiction itself.

A dysfunctional 1950s family reunites for the Christmas holiday from hell in this savagely witty rediscovered festive classic for fans of Barbara Pym, Stella Gibbons, Jean Rhys . She had her hand on the strings; the puppets could frolic awhile. The fire is on, sherry poured, presents wrapped, and claws are being sharpened. In a seaside cottage perched on a cliff, one family reunites for Christmas. While snow falls, a tyrannical widowed matriarch presides...

One fine day, AD 70, Sosia Camillina quite literally runs into Marcus Didius Falco on the steps of the Forum. It seems Sosia is on the run from a couple of street toughs, and after a quick and dirty rescue, PI Falco wants to know why. Falco finds out that Sosia, the niece of a highly placed senator, holds the secret to a stockpile of silver pigs, ingots intended for no good use. Hoping for future favours from Sosia's powerful uncle, Falco embarks...

1885 - ex-convict Emma Grady has returned to her hometown of Blackburn and been reunited with her lover Marlow. Now married, with a beautiful home, loving husband and wonderful son, she is still haunted by the past, unable to forget the cruelty of her uncle Caleb Crowther, who ignored her desperate pleas to save her and her tragic first-born. A feared local justice, Crowther curses his niece?s return and sets out to destroy her anew, whilst also hounding...

Sometimes the ties that bind are the most dangerous of all ... Paris, 1899. Emma Lacasse has been estranged from her older sister for nearly 20 years, since Caroline married a wealthy American and left France. So when Emma receives a request from Caroline to meet her, she is intrigued. Caroline invites Emma to visit her in New York, on one condition: Emma must tutor her shy, young niece, Isadora, and help her prepare for her society debut. Caroline...

It is the week before Christmas. The effects of the credit crunch have prompted Dr Kay Scarpetta to offer her services pro bono to New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. But in no time at all, her increased visibility seems to precipitate a string of dramatic and unsettling events. She is asked live on the air about the sensational case of Hannah Starr, who has vanished and is presumed dead. Moments later during the same broadcast,...

Recently distracted by the arrival of her and Jamie?s second son, Magnus, Isabel Dalhousie - philanthropic editor of the Review of Applied Ethics - is anxious. The next issue of the Review is far from ready, her eldest, Charlie, is jealous, and their housekeeper, Grace, has an officious approach to childcare. With some relief, Isabel returns to helping out at her niece Cat?s delicatessen, where surely the most taxing duty is the preparation of sandwiches....