It is June 11th 1994 in the depths of Herefordshire and Natasha Devereux's family and two hundred guests gather together to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of St Martins. From the vision of one woman who fled Bolshevik Russia and opened her doors to artists, musicians, writers, and refugees from war-torn Europe, it has become a sanctuary for generations of her family. Over the course of one day they face marital crisis, impending birth, teenage trauma, a father's roving eye, momentous news from the past, communal financial crisis, and a lost love from the summer of 1957.

Violence, greed and betrayal threaten the remote communities of East Anglia in the seventeenth century, when ruthless and unscrupulous speculators steal their common lands, while fanatic Puritans bring accusations of heresy and witchcraft. Granddaughter of a local hero, Mercy Bennington moves out of the shadow of her elder brother to become a leader of the protestors, finding the strength to confront the enemies who endanger the survival of her village and her own life. Yet the violence wreaked upon the fragile fenlands unleashes a force no one can control - flood.

Sofia Niklai, a reclusive exile, and Kate Milburn, locked in a stifling marriage, form a tentative friendship on a windswept beach in Northumbria. While Sofia forces herself to confront her father's diaries, Kate must face half-remembered shadows from her childhood. Together they make an impulsive journey to Hungary, Sofia's homeland. It is a journey from which neither can return unaltered. Their meeting in Hungary with Istvan Rudnay, also marked by the dark experiences of his youth, leads them to a discovery of the warmth and love so lacking in their own lives, whilst he in turn comes to a...

'Today I had word that my brother Ya'aqob is dead.' When this news reaches Mariam, living in exile in the province of Gaul, memories of her girlhood in faraway Palestine are painfully awakened. For years she has blocked them from her mind, but as illness and old age overtake her, she begins to relive the time when she defied all propriety and convention and followed her charismatic brother Yeshua and her betrothed Yehuda in their daring but perilous adventure. 'We were young. We were going to change the world.' Mariam shared the excitement, the fear and the mystery of the mission, but cannot...

Tirza Libby, a respected and successful war photographer, tries to escape her past by retreating to a remote Scottish island. But even thousands of miles and four decades cannot erase the memories of a childhood summer in Maine: a community profoundly altered by war, a family thrown into conflict, and the British airman who changed all their lives. This is the story of that fateful summer. Only by revisiting Maine can Tirza solve the mysteries of that past and complete her journey of self-discovery. In its lyrical portrayal of a courageous but fragile way of life, A Running Tide gathers in...

In Elizabethan London, no child is safe. Children are misused and exploited by parents, masters, strangers, and society at large. Even the children of the rich are in danger. When a five-year-old heiress to great estates is kidnapped, Christoval Alvarez, the players of James Burbage's company, and a disreputable group of child beggars all become involved in the search. At Seething Lane, matters are approaching a crisis. Sir Francis Walsingham is dying and, as Thomas Phelippes struggles to hold the intelligence service together, he receives information that another attack on the Queen is...

An agent sent to Muscovy to investigate suspected treason amongst employees of the Muscovy Company has disappeared without trace on the way to Astrakhan. Sir Francis Walsingham, who began the investigation, is dead, but the directors of the Company know that the agent must be found, dead or alive. The perfect opportunity comes when the Tsar, Emperor of All the Russias, asks for an English physician to treat his young half brother. Christoval Alvarez, physician and former Walsingham agent, is the obvious choice, but is loathe to travel to this violent and barbarous land. However, there is no...

When Kit Alvarez returns from Muscovy, it is to discover that her post as physician at St Thomas's hospital has been given to another. Trying to eke out the small income she earns from some of Dr Nunez's private patients, she undertakes paid work as a copyist with James Burbage's company. But the players' companies find themselves under threat. Two of Burbage's men are murdered. One of Henslowe's men is attacked. And two important new plays go missing, one by Will Shakespeare and one by Christopher Marlowe. Are the thefts merely the work of a jealous unlicensed company? Or is there a...

When the violent arrest of an innocent apprentice sparks a riot in Southwark during the summer of 1592, more lies behind it than a simple grievance. Increasing poverty, vagrancy, and crime in a restless London compel a nervous Privy Council to close the playhouses, forcing Lord Strange's Men to go on tour, while hostility to foreign refugees, aggravated by Marlowe's play, The Jew of Malta, adds to the danger on the streets for Strangers like Kit Alvarez. Other dangers are more subtle. The ensnaring of young men by illegal loan sharks and the circulation of damning accusations, both public and...