Ricky France-Lynch is moody, macho, and magnificent. He had a large crumbling estate, a nine-goal polo handicap, and a beautiful wife who was fair game for anyone with a cheque book. He also had the adoration of fourteen-year-old Perdita MacLeod. Perdita couldn't wait to leave her dreary school and become a polo player.

Sir Robert Rannaldini had two ambitions: to seduce his stepdaughter Tabitha Campbell-Black, and to put his mark on musical history by making the film of Verdi's opera, Don Carlos. As the crew gather at Rannaldini's haunted abbey for filming, it is inevitable that violent feuds, temperamental screaming, and devious plotting will ensue.

Abigail Rosen, nicknamed Appassionata, was the sexiest, most flamboyant violinist in classical music, but she was also the loneliest and the most exploited girl. When a dramatic suicide attempt destroyed her violin career, she set her sights on the male-dominated heights of the conductor's rostrum.

Lysander Hawkley combined breathtaking good looks with the kindest of hearts. He couldn't pass a stray dog, an ill-treated horse or a neglected wife without rushing to the rescue. And with neglected wives the rescue invariably led to ecstatic bonking, which didn't please their erring husbands one bit.

Discovered by a young lieutenant, Raymond Kelvedon in a Normandy Chateau in 1944, she had cast her spell over his family. Hanging in a turret of their lovely Cotswold house, Pandora witnessed Raymond's tempestuous wife Galena both entertaining a string of lovers, and giving birth to her four children.

Etta Bancroft adores racing. When her bullying husband dies, she moves to the Cotswold village of Willowwood. Ettas life is transformed when she finds a horribly mutilated filly wandering in the woods, and when tests show the horse to be a spectacularly well-bred racehorse a village syndicate is formed to train the filly.

Countless brave animals have played a part in wartime, from the pigeons carrying messages in World War I to dogs sniffing out mines in World War II. This book recounts the stories of some of these brave animals and the people who served with them.

Brooding hero Jake Lovell, under whose magic hands even the most difficult horse or woman is charmed, is driven by his loathing of the dashing darling of the show ring, Rupert Campbell-Black. Having pinched each other's horses and drunk their way around the capitals of Europe, the feud between the two men finally erupts.

Rupert is consumed by one obsession: that Love Rat, his adored grey horse, be proclaimed champion stallion. When Gala, a grieving but ravishing Zimbabwean widow moves to Penscombe as carer for Rupert's wayward father, it is not just Gav who is attracted to her: a returning Rupert finds himself dangerously tempted.