When Richard Blythe's wife, Rachel, dies from cancer after a protracted illness, he is determined to get away from it all amid the wilds of the countryside, leaving his young twins, his job, his friends and all known responsibilities for a few precious weeks of reflection and healing. However, within days, the world has caught up with him, confronting him with a vulnerable girl whom he finds unconscious and who clearly has more of a story to tell than she is divulging. This unfortunate meeting starts a series of events that unsettle Richard's life to the point where he can no longer...

Upper Slaughter is a quintessential English village, yet underneath the cosy veneer of small village life lurk many festering secrets. Enchanted by the village and its surrounds, Sarah and Phillip move into Primrose Cottage with great expectations. However, paths cross, fates twist, misunderstandings occur and the one issue that exists between Sarah and Phillip rears up, causing fissures in their marriage. Phillip thinks Sarah has left him, Sarah thinks a sexual deviant has kidnapped her, and a very close friend with lesbian tendencies uses this opportunity to play the seductive predator. In...

When Adam Harrison is five years old, his parents die in an unexplained private plane crash in Hong Kong and the Chinese family of one of his father's business associates adopts him. Over the next few years he becomes ever more intimate with his adoptive sister, Lucinda, until at fourteen they are discovered together naked, resulting in Adam being sent away to England in disgrace. Nevertheless, at the first opportunity, Adam and Lucinda reunite, marry and have two children. Then, one Friday night, after Adam has returned home from a week in London, he discovers his wife and both children...

Colin and Rachel are lovers who become separated when the Japanese invade Sarawak, Borneo, in December 1941. Colin escapes into the jungle but is seriously injured. He is discovered and adopted by the indigenous Iban, the notorious head-hunters of Borneo. Rachel is interned and starts over three years of cruelty and heartache. After Colin is integrated into the Iban's way of life, he takes an Iban wife, Aslah, and has a son, Dani. The war progresses and when the Iban's existence is threatened, Colin, assumes an aggressive stance and leads Iban warriors in their first attack against the...

Frustrated with his marriage and his job, Peter Salter's view on the future is pessimistic almost to the extreme. But holding him back from doing something he might regret are his eight-year old twins, Laura and Matthew, on whom he dotes. In his more agreeable moments, Peter realises that if he and his wife, Angela, are going to have a future then change is necessary. On Angela's suggestion, a move from the anonymity of an estate in Daventry to a delightful thatched cottage in Ashby St Ledgers only five miles away, might be the first adjustment that could hold the otherwise idyllic family...

Sitting on the bank of the River Wear running below Durham Castle, undergraduate Leah Carmichael is looking for inspiration in the sparkling water and the golden autumnal leaves. Her concentration is interrupted when she is approached by a stranger, Peter Bennett, who eventually suggests they have a cup of tea together, and Leah agrees. The innocence of this 'boy meets girl' everyday occurrence is the precursor to tragedy. As she innocently enjoys a cream tea, Leah could never imagine that she has been chosen to be her companion's sixth and final victim. Peter Bennett is evil: most men who...