Rita and Rosie Stevens are only nine and five years old when their widowed mother marries a violent bully called Jimmy Randall and has a baby boy by him. Under pressure from her new husband, she is persuaded to send the girls to an orphanage - not knowing that the papers she has signed will entitle them to do what they like with the children. And it is not long before the powers that be decide to send a consignment of orphans to their sister institution...

Eight ash trees were planted in the Dorset village of Charlton Ambrose, as a timeless memorial to the men killed in the Great War. One dark and chilly night in 1921, a ninth tree appears. Who planted it and why? And who was 'the unknown soldier' for whom it is marked? Eighty years later, the memorial is under threat from developers. Local reporter, Rachel Elliott, is determined not only to save it, but to solve the mystery of the ninth tree. She has...

A lost child, a family divided, the bitter backdrop of war. After the Franco-Prussian War and the siege of 1870-71, the St Clair family return to Paris, seeking refuge and security, only to be swept up into the terrible cruelties and violence of the Commune. Here their young daughter, Hélène, falls ill and in an unlucky twist of fate, becomes separated from her family. Alone and frightened, she has to fend for herself on the war-torn streets. Meanwhile,...

Dartmouth Circle is quiet and exclusive – just the way its residents want it to stay, especially arch busybody Sheila Colby. When she hears that the house next door to her has been bought for a student and four friends to rent, she is incandescent. Nothing in this outwardly serene little cul-de-sac is quite as it seems -will the arrival of Madeleine 'Mad' Richmond and her friends bring seething tensions and dark secrets bubbling to the surface?

Germany 1937: Fear and betrayal stalk the streets. People disappear. Persecution of the Jews has become a national pastime. When Ruth Friedman's husband is arrested by the SS, she is left to fend for herself and her four children. She alone stands as their shield against the Nazis. But where can she go? Where will her family be safe? Ruth must overcome the indifference, hatred, and cruelty that surrounds her as she and her family race to escape the...