Jessica Blair

Captain David Fernley has made and lost a fortune in the whaling trade, fishing the frozen Arctic wastes from the Yorkshire port of Whitby. Then his erring wife and best friend die in an accident at sea. But whaling is the only life he knows. Determined to change his bad luck, he starts afresh in London, where he is offered command of the Hind.

French-born Marie Gabin forms a friendship with Veronica Attwood in their final two years at school. But their relationship is tested when Marie is forced to disclose a secret and the momentous years of two world wars sees lives torn apart.

David Feernley is determined to escape the drudgery of his life as a Yorkshire farmhand. Setting off for the coast, he aims to join the whaling fleet at Whitby. He is followed by Ruth, his childhood sweetheart, her heart set on marriage. Yet David is drawn to another's betrothed: the pretty, gentle Jenny. And it is Jenny's bright red shawl that David searches for on the cliff-tops on his return from the long months at sea...

When Kate Swan's overbearing father demands that she marry a man she despises, she refuses and is cast out of her comfortable home in Whitby. Then she meets, Malcolm McFadden, heir to the Shetland's Garstan Estate, and they are instantly attracted to one other. But the Highland Clearances have begun, and old loyalties draw Malcolm back to Shetland where he vanishes without trace.

1858 - In Newcastle, love is blossoming between Robert Addison, son of a successful merchant, and Adele Jordan. When Robert discovers something scandalous that he fears will ruin many people's lives, he changes his identity and disappears. But the Addison family believe that Adele is the cause and blame her, which makes her determined to find him.

Whitby 1901. Sarah Brook has kept diaries for most of her life. Now 85 and at the end of her own journey, she allows her favourite great-niece Esther to read them. But while full of Sarah's thoughts and dreams, and family stories, the diaries also hold dark family secrets about the past, which are about to be exposed...

Scarborough, 1938. When Jane and Nell are brought together by a chance encounter, Jane, unhappy at home, sees an opportunity to escape when Nell invites her to visit her family in Lowestoft. However, they have no idea that their friendship will be tested through the trials of love, hardship and war.