Andrew Miller

December 1962, the West Country. Local doctor Eric Parry, mulling secrets, sets out on his rounds, while his pregnant wife sleeps on in the warmth of their cottage. Across the field, funny, troubled Rita Simmons is also asleep, her head full of images of a past life her husband prefers to ignore. He's been up for hours, tending to the needs of the small dairy farm where he hoped to create a new version of himself, a project that's already faltering.

But when the ordinary cold of an English December gives way to violent blizzards, the two couples find their lives beginning to unravel.

Where do you hide when you can't leave home? And where, in a frozen world, can you run to?

In 1940 Japan’s war with China escalates, but in Tokyo Yuji Takano clings to his cocooned life, his evenings of French conversation with Monsieur Feneon, and dreams of writing. Yuji becomes entangled with Feneon’s daughter and as war with the allies becomes inevitable he must decide where his duty lies.

In a world where people slaughter the innocent without mercy or retribution, how can we have faith in humanity, or the future?

Clem Glass, a photojournalist, returns from Africa to London convinced there is no hope for mankind. Yet after his sister falls ill and he takes her back to the West Country of their childhood, he cannot ignore the decency and kindness he encounters, or the pulse of goodness in his own heart. When news comes offering Clem the chance to confront the author of his nightmares, he must choose what sort of man to be.

An ex-soldier and recovering alcoholic living quietly in Somerset, Stephen Rose has just begun to form a bond with the daughter he barely knows when he receives a summons - to an inquiry into an incident during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. 

It is the return of what Stephen hoped he had outdistanced. Above all, to testify would jeopardise the fragile relationship with his daughter. And if he loses her, he loses everything.

Instead, he decides to write her an account of his life; a confession, a defence, a love letter. Also a means of buying time. But time is running out, and the day comes when he must face again what happened in that faraway summer of 1982.

Witnessing the progression of regional corruption in his work as a British lawyer in early 2000s Moscow, Nick Platt rescues two sisters from a purse snatcher and pursues a glamorous romantic relationship with one of them before he is asked to help with a dubious family endeavour. X rated, contains graphic violence and explicit sex.