As spring comes to Scotland and the hills burst into life, a dance is planned for September. The invitations summon home the group of people Violet Aird has cared for most in her long life. Far from them all is Pandora, the glamorous, exciting girl who ran away twenty years before. All will converge on Scotland this September.

Artist's daughter, Penelope can look back on a full and varied life: a Bohemian childhood in London and Cornwall, an unhappy wartime marriage, and the one man she truly loved. She has brought up three children - and learned to accept them as they are. Yet, she is far too energetic and independent to settle sweetly into pensioned-off old-age.

The bestselling, heartwarming tale of innocence and youth during the 1930s re-issued with a stunning new jacket look

Elfrida Phipps loves her new life in the pretty Hampshire village. But an unforeseen tragedy upsets Elfrida's tranquillity: Oscar's wife and daughter are killed in a terrible car crash and he finds himself homeless when his stepchildren claim their dead mother's inheritance.

Searching for a father she has never known, Selina Bruce leaves her fiance in London and flies to a tiny island off Spain. Here she meets the mysterious George Dyer who holds the key not only to her past, but also her heart."

Sitting on a California beach at summer's end, Jane Marsh thinks back to her childhood at the estate called Elvie in a remote corner of Scotland. She remembers not only the heather-covered hills and the lonesome loch, but her grandmother - and, of course, Sinclair.

Virginia has a secret dream. To have a second chance at loving the Cornish farmer she once met. Now she has come back to Cornwall to rent a cottage for herself and her children, and to discover if this time she can fill an empty house with love.

Rebecca is shattered to learn of a part of her family she never knew existed. Travelling to Cornwall she meets them, only to become involved in a family mystery that holds the key to her future, and her heart.

Through thick mist and a cold east wind, Lavinia returns to Scotland. Up at the big house Mrs Farquhar is dying. Seeing Lachlan again, Lavinia remembers her childhood holidays there: swimming in the loch, the picnics, bottle-feeding the lambs down at the farm and the evenings when they danced reels. Most of all, she remembers Mrs Farquhar's grandson Rory. In the house, as the old lady lies serene and beautiful in the bed she has slept in since coming home to Lachlan as a bride, Lavinia meets Rory once again.

This collection of short stories from the author of The Shellseekers illustrates Rosamunde Pilcher's storytelling skills at their best.