Can anyone be "better than perfect"? That's the question lonely teenager Elizabeth Haddon struggles to answer when she is sent from England to live with relatives in Auckland, New Zealand. Arriving in the dead of winter, Elizabeth soon falls under the spell of her beautiful, but enigmatic cousin Ravenna who insists the most important thing in life is to "fit in." Elizabeth, who wants only to be accepted by her new family and their affluent social circle, does her best to comply until she starts to see the cracks; cracks that turn into virtual canyons when tragedy strikes. Set in a time before...

"Marry in haste, repent at leisure." Portrait painter Sara Elliott has never been afraid of risk. Moving to London, pawning her jewelry, taking difficult commissions, Sara lives life on the edge. But when she agrees to marry a stranger days before he is scheduled to leave the country, even Sara wonders if she has gone too far. Over the coming months, alone and uncertain of her future, Sara drifts into an uneasy routine waiting for her husband, Miles, to return. When an unexpected letter suddenly threatens her plans for a settled existence, Sara is forced to question everything she thought she...