Meriel Gardner

A poor country is hosting an international gathering to promote international trade. This is stormed by kidnappers and a lengthy siege ensues during which two couples fall in love, turning an horrific imprisonment into an unexpected heaven on earth. Orange/Baileys Prize.

Rising political star, Hugh Eastwood, and his wife, Roz, have an enviable lifestyle. After the birth of their beloved son Roz returns to work leaving Charley with a nanny, Alice. Their world is shattered when Charley is fatally injured and Alice is the obvious suspect, but is the truth closer to home?

Henry is a hip, young DJ who worries about his son. Philip is an ex-MP ruined by scandal, Diane his long-suffering wife. Marianne has replaced her husband with chocolates and gin whilst Lizzie battles serious illness. Suddenly Eva, a Polish backpacker, arrives in their lives and with bewildering speed they find their worlds changing shape.

Bullied at school, nagged in Aunty May's tenth-floor council flat, there's only one place ten-year-old Billy really feels alive - in the wilderness by the canal. There he watches a cygnet on the water and protects a family of fox cubs. Then his secret place is discovered and the fox family decimated. Unwanted and unloved, Billy and the last fox run for their lives…

Lucia Sartori is the most beautiful girl in Greenwich Village, with a glamorous job in a Fifth Avenue store. Though never short of suitors she is not prepared to swap her satisfying career for the role of wife and mother. Until, that is, a handsome stranger comes into her life! Richard & Judy Bookclub.

Although June Knox-Mawer and her husband were born and brought up in Wales, study and work meant they lived all over the world. Gradually a sense of homesickness led her to search for a house in Wales, initially to use for breaks but later to be a permanent home. She found this in Hafod!