Ashcombe was the most beautiful house Saskia had ever seen as a little girl. A rambling pink cottage on the edge of the Suffolk village of Melbury Green, its enchanting garden provided a fairy-tale playground of seclusion, a perfect sanctuary to hide from the tragedy which shattered her childhood. Now an adult, Saskia is still living at Ashcombe and as a book restorer devotes her days tending to the broken, battered books that find their way to her, daydreaming about the people who had once turned their pages. When she discovers a notebook carefully concealed in an old Bible — and realising someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to hide a story of their own — Saskia finds herself drawn into a heart-rending tale of wartime love...

Lake Como — beautiful, enchanting, romantic... For Floriana, it is the place where the love of her life is getting married to another woman. And she's been invited to the wedding. For Esme, it is where, over 60 years ago, she fell in love for the first time. So often she's wondered what happened to the man who stole her heart — and changed the course of her life. Adam is in danger of burying himself entirely in his work after his girlfriend left him. Could a trip to Lake Como be the distraction he needs? Now it's time for each of them to understand that the past is not only another country, it can also cast haunting shadows over everyone's lives...

Family life for Mia Channing has always been a carefully orchestrated balancing act. Her husband, Jeff, sees himself as the Larger than Life Patriarch and has always assigned their grown up children very specific roles. Jensen, the eldest, is the Unlovable Awkward One; Eliza, the Distant Smart One; and Daisy, the baby of the family, is the Special One. Mia's own role is that of Devoted Wife and Mediator. When Jensen makes a rare visit home to the village of Little Pelham to celebrate his thirtieth birthday, he brings with him his latest girlfriend and her daughter in tow, his sister Daisy seizes the opportunity to drop the bombshell that she's moving to Australia. It's an evening that marks a turning point in all their lives... Meanwhile yet more change is in the air with the arrival in Little Pelham of wealthy, divorced Owen Fletcher. His return to live in The Hidden Cottage, a place that holds special memories for him, forces Mia to confront the role she's played all these years and to take the risk, finally, of being true to herself.