Anna Bentinck

In this charming but powerful memoir, Penelope Lively reports from beyond the horizon of old age. She examines the tricks and truths of memory and looks back over a lifetime of reading and writing. And finally she looks at her identifying cargo of possessions - two ammonites, a cat, a pair of American ducks and a leaping fish sherd, amongst others.

Lucy Tiversley decides that she has neither the looks nor the money for the Marriage Mart, so she becomes a governess. When she lands in a compromising situation with her employer, he vows to marry her. Lucy is furious but even she cannot stand up to her rakish employer once he has decided.

Alison Hart, a medium by trade, tours the dormitory towns of London's orbital ring road with her flint-hearted sidekick, Colette, passing on messages from beloved dead ancestors. But behind her plump, smiling persona hides a desperate woman: she knows the terrors the next life holds but must conceal them from her wide-eyed clients. At the same time she is plagued by spirits from her own past, who infiltrate her body and home, becoming stronger and nastier the more she resists....

The woman of Bletchley Park have a unique story to tell. Through the voices of the women themselves, this is a portrait of life in Britain's most secret organisation, beyond the celebrated code-breakers. The Bletchley Girls is the story of the women behind Britain's ability to consistently outsmart the enemy.

Cavendon Hall is a grand house in the Yorkshire Dales, home to the aristocratic Ingham family, and the Swann family who serve them. But in the summer of 1913, a devastating event changes their futures forever, and life as the families of Cavendon Hall know it, is about to alter beyond recognition as the storm clouds of war gather. Book 1 of series.

As the clouds of war gather over Cavendon Hall, sons, husbands and brothers are called up to fight; trials and tragedies strike the great house itself. The women must rise to meet the terrible threat posed by Hitler. The Cavendon Luck has held for a long time. Can it hold in the face of this greatest threat of all – and can it protect the next generation? Book 3 of series.

The estate is under threat: the aftermath of the Great War has left Cavendon facing ruin. Four young women will be the ones to shape its future – Daphne, fighting to modernise her ancestral home; Cecily Swann, a fashion designer in London; Deidre, the career girl, and Dulcie, the outspoken debutante. They will change the estate’s future for good or ill. Nothing will ever be the same again… Book 2 of series.

In the middle of the night, a woman starts writing to an estranged friend. ... and so begins a letter that both women would have preferred to forget. She writes night after night - a letter of belated rage and forgiveness, the letter dissects what is left of a friendship caught between the forces of hatred and love.

Kate Rokesmith's murder shocked the nation. Detective Inspector Darnell, vowing to leave no stone unturned in the search for her killer, began to lose his only daughter, Stella. Now, thirty years later, after her father's death Stella finds the case papers for the unsolved murder and determines to find the killer herself.

On 7 November 1974, nanny Sandra Rivett was bludgeoned to death in a Belgravia basement. Veronica, Countess of Lucan, was also attacked. The man named in court as perpetrator of these crimes, Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, disappeared in the early hours of the following morning. The case, solved in the eyes of the law, has retained its fascination ever since.

Sarah Tucker - a young married woman, bored and unhappy with her life - becomes obsessed with trying to find the little girl who disappears after a neighbouring house is destroyed by a massive explosion. What begins in suburban Oxford ends on a Scottish island as the hunt for the missing child takes Sarah out of her marriage and onto a journey with a troubled ex-soldier.  Book 1 of series.

Maud is forgetful and struggling to cope with dementia. She makes a cup of tea and doesn’t remember to drink it. She sometimes thinks her daughter Helen is a total stranger. But there’s one thing Maud is sure of: her friend Elizabeth is missing. The note in her pocket tells her so. And no matter who tells her to stop going on about it, Maud will get to the bottom of it. Richard & Judy Bookclub

After her best friend Eloise dies from breast cancer, Cathy is devastated. But then Cathy begins to have disturbing dreams that imply Eloise's death was not all it seems.

Joan Seabrook, a fledgling archaeologist, longs to explore the desert fort of Jabrin, and unearth the treasures it is said to conceal. When she meets her childhood heroine, pioneering explorer Maude Vickery, Joan is seduced by Maude’s stories, and the thrill of the adventure they hold. Only too late does she question actions that will spark a potentially disastrous, chain of events...

After dreaming for three years, Sophie Munroe finally returns to Jamaica, her childhood home, in 1903. Sophie's sister is keeping something from her, and her childhood hero Ben Kelly, is avoiding her. Soon Sophie is facing a clash of loyalties, and the prejudices of colonial society.

In 1888, young, art-loving Harriet Baxter arrives in Glasgow at the time of the International Exhibition. Befriending the Gillespie family, Harriet soon becomes a fixture in all of their lives. But when tragedy strikes the promise and certainties of this world all too rapidly disorientate into mystery and deception.

Marian Sutro is an outsider: half French, half British, naive yet too clever for her own good. But when she is recruited from her desk job by SOE to go undercover in wartime France, it seems her hybrid status - and fluent French - will be of service to a greater, more dangerous cause.

Wiltshire, 1922. When Donny Cartwright is accused of murder, his sister Pudding is determined to discover the identity of the real killer. Together with newcomer, Irene, she begins to uncover the truth. But when they happen upon a strange object, hidden in the past, they realise it will change everything..

When Sherlock Holmes turns down the case of persecuted Laura Shirley, Mrs Hudson and Mary Watson resolve to take on the investigation themselves. From the kitchen of 221b, the two women begin their inquiries and enlist the assistance of the Baker Street Irregulars and the infamous Irene Adler. As they put together the pieces of an increasingly complex puzzle, the investigation becomes bigger than either of them could ever have imagined.

When the Nazis invade Denmark, British-born Kay Eberstern is sickened when her husband Bror collaborates with the enemy to save his family home. As they are drawn further into danger, Kay is faced with a wrenching moral dilemma. Who will be sacrificed next for the cause? Can she and Bror ever find their way back to one another?

When Alicia Carlyle returns to the home of her childhood after the tragic death of her husband, she is hoping to put the past behind her. But first she must come face to face with the woman who tore her family in two - her sister-in-law, Sabrina. Their enmity runs deep and soon the two families are locked in a battle that is fraught with mistrust, betrayal and lies - a battle that threatens to destroy them all...

Belle Hatton has embarked upon an exciting new life far from home, a glamorous job as a nightclub singer in 1930s Burma. Then she finds an old newspaper clipping in her parents' belongings after their death, saying that the Hattons were leaving Rangoon after the disappearance of their baby daughter, Elvira. Belle is desperate to find out what happened to the sister she never knew she had. Is her sister really dead? Or could there be a chance Belle might find her?

The Orient Express. Luxury. Mystery. Romance. For one group of passengers taking their first sips of champagne, the journey from London to Venice is more than the trip of a lifetime. As the train sweeps on, revelations, confessions and assignations unfold against the most romantic and infamous setting in the world.

15th July 1988. Emma and Dexter meet for the first time on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways. So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that? And every year that follows...?

Since Susannah Cates' husband was sent to prison three years ago, life has been a constant struggle. Worried by her mother's unhappiness, thirteen-year-old Neve decides to take matters into her own hands. But as her plan starts to unfold she has no way of knowing what kind of fate she is stirring..

This is a family portrait captured in snapshots. First there is William, the factory lad who loses his life in Gallipoli, then his son Billy, a bicycle champion followed by his crippled son Will who becomes an Oxford academic and finally Will's daughter Billie, an artist in contemporary London.

Evacuated to Cornwall during the Second World War, Rose falls in love with a young Czech soldier, stationed at the local US army base. Both of them are trying to forget that Rose is already engaged, so they flee to Prague, only to face a greater danger.

It's the summer of 1949, and things have run smoothly at Cavendon Hall for years, but since the end of World War II, changes have arrived. A new generation is at the helm and at the forefront of new scandal and intrigue. With romance, betrayal, heartbreak and possible murder threatening to tear them apart, the Inghams and Swanns will have to find a way to come together…  Book 4

Nell and Sylvie grow up quickly during the early days of rationing, blackouts and the arrival of RAF planes in the skies over the Chilterns. When the machinations of war changes the course of their lives, with devastating consequences, the only place Nell can find solace is inside the walled garden that her father tended so lovingly.

Since she was twelve-years-old Billie has lived wirh a secret that isolates her from family and friends. Through the Great War she tries to find peace, but realises that she has to break free of her secret - or lose any chance of happiness.

London, June 1940. When the body of silent screen star Mabel Morgan is found impaled on railings, the coroner rules her death as suicide, but DI Ted Stratton of CID is not convinced. As he starts asking questions, he soon uncovers a criminal network and a secretive pro-fascist organisation.

When Tess Angel receives a solicitor's letter inviting her to claim her inheritance - the Villa Sirena, perched on a clifftop in Sicily - she is stunned. Her mother, Flavia, who left Sicily during World War II and cut all contact with her family, realises that secrets she’s kept hidden are about to be revealed and decides to try to explain her past.

A prequel to Charlotte Brontë's 'Jane Eyre' (7377), this is Jean Rhys' story of Antoinette Cosway from the time of her youth in the Caribbean to her unhappy marriage with Mr Rochester and relocation to England. Caught between his demands and her own precarious sense of belonging, Antoinette is inexorably driven towards madness.

Janice Keaton is living a quiet, easy life when a longed-for reunion with the daughter she gave up for adoption years earlier drags her into a lethal confrontation with her past. As she struggles to come to terms with a series of shocks, Janice realises that her recollections of the past hold a sinister secret - one with deadly consequences...