It is Christmas Eve. Karin Courtney reluctantly accompanies writer husband Richard to a party to meet film director John Peterman, leaving their five year old son in care of a new baby-sitter. He awakes-finds the girl sleeping, stares at the glittering tree, attempts to light the candles A desperate phone call alerts the couple, their home now a raging inferno. Richard makes a vain attempt to reach his son No trace remains of Tommie. Has he escaped the flames? A distraught Karin believes he is alive despite evidence to contrary. John Peterman has noticed a strong resemblance between Karin...

Successful writer Katya Kerensky has thrust the secret of her schoolgirl pregnancy, adoption of her baby forced on her by implacable parents, to the back of her mind. Now on a night of storm, she hears knocking at the door of her Perthshire cottage, is confronted by an aggressive teenager who declares she is Katya's daughter. Katya remembers a birthmark on the right side of her baby's neck, the angry girl facing her has such a mark but on the left side - after a fraught night the girl leaves. Katya investigates Judy's background. A clue leads her to Mull, where amongst wild, breathtaking...

Sounds of violence, flames leaping to the sky, thick acrid smoke rising like a pall Little Fiona Jamieson realises the dreaded Clearances have come to Glenbruach, witnesses her mother's murder, small brothers thrown into a cart. Other crofts torched, those who resist, savagely beaten, brutalised. She falls under a horses hooves - amnesia. Taken to the Factor's house, word is received her soldier father has died in battle. Percy Twaith, wealthy sheep farmer and mill owner notices Fiona, whilst making a deal with Glenbruach's Laird, who is forcibly clearing hundreds of poor, loyal tenants from...

Rosamund is living in Spain happily married to acclaimed pianist Leopold Heine commissioned by tempestuous black American Gabi Schofield to compose music for her film 'Tears in the Dust'. The phone rings. Leopold has died in a plane crash in the Ghanaian jungle. Heartbroken Rosamund visits the blackened site, where children materialise from the bush and sing poignantly in support of her grief. She learns they are AIDS orphans. Rosamund returns to the village, bringing in medical staff for its small hospital, cares for the orphans and reaches out to a traumatised boy through her music, in this...

Rachel Roberts, courageous TV correspondent needs a break. She inherits Stormhaven, stone cottage on a spur jutting into the estuary at Rushton. In the tranquillity of this remote area, she plans to relax, perhaps find answers to the horrors of conflicts she has reported in the recent past. Close to the cottage, starkly silhouetted against the sea, rears an old mill, inhabited by her nearest neighbour, an artist. This bitter individual, despite his alibi, is rumoured to be responsible for the murder of his late wife. Rachel is frustrated to find an element of danger even in this quiet place,...