Harriet Walter

Jane settles into village life with her baby. When Dottie arrives they put their heads together and come up with a scheme to improve their lives.

Some of the great classic short stories inspired by women. This empowering selection explores the many experiences and complexities of womanhood.

Some of the great classic shorts stories inspired by women. This empowering selection explores the many experiences and complexities of womanhood, sometimes joyful, sometimes sad. It includes Ladies in Lavender by William J Locke, the inspiration for the film of the same name starring Judi Dench and Maggie Smith.

Book 3 of the 'Balkan' trilogy, sequel to: 'The Spoilt City' (9372). Having fled Nazi-occupied Romania, Harriet Pringle arrives in Athens, where she anxiously waits for news of her husband, Guy, trapped in Bucharest.

Ragnarok is the story of the end of the world. It is a tale of the destruction of life on this planet and the end of the gods themselves: what more relevant myth could any modern writer choose? As the bombs rain down in the Second World War, one young girl is evacuated to the English countryside. She is struggling to make sense of her new wartime life. Then she is given a copy of Asgard and the Gods - a book of ancient Norse myths - and her inner and outer worlds are transformed. War, natural disaster, reckless gods and the destruction of life on this planet are just some of the threads that A.S. Byatt weaves into this most timely of books. Just as Wagner borrowed from this dramatic Norse saga for the climax of the Ring Cycle, so A.S. Byatt reinvents it for our time in all its intensity and glory. Linguistically stunning and imaginatively abundant, this is a landmark piece of storytelling from one of the world's truly great writers.

Seventy-nine is too late for a second chance. Isn’t it? Missy Carmichael is prickly, stubborn – and terribly lonely. Until a chance encounter in the park with two very different women opens the door to something new. Something wonderful. Missy was used to her small, solitary existence, listening to her footsteps echoing around the empty house, the tick-tick-tick of the watching clock. After all, she had made her life her way. Now another life is beckoning to Missy – if she’s brave enough....

Book 2 of the 'Balkan' trilogy, sequel to 'The Great Fortune' (9374). It is 1940, the phony war is over and the Pringles are finding their position in Bucharest even more precarious, with invasion by the Germans an ever present threat..