Juliet Stevenson

Yvonne Carmichael has a high-flying career, a beautiful home and a good marriage. But when she meets a stranger she is drawn into a passionate affair. Keeping the two halves of her life separate seems easy at first. But she can't control what happens next...

Banned in the Soviet Union until 1988, Doctor Zhivago is the epic story of the life and loves of a poet-physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Yuri Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds, and in love with the tender and beautiful nurse Lara. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have restored the rhythms, tone, precision, and poetry of Pasternak's original, bringing this classic of world literature gloriously to life for a new generation of readers.

Meet the Hanrahan family, gathering for a momentous weekend as famous artist and notorious egoist Ray Hanrahan prepares for a new exhibition of his art - the first in many decades - and one he is sure will burnish his reputation for good.

His three children will be there: beautiful Leah, always her father's biggest champion; sensitive Patrick, who has finally decided to strike out on his own; and insecure Jess, the youngest, who has her own momentous decision to make . . .

And what of Lucia, Ray's steadfast and selfless wife? She is an artist, too, but has always had to put her roles as wife and mother first. What will happen if she decides to change? For Lucia is hiding secrets of her own, and as the weekend unfolds and the exhibition approaches, she must finally make a choice.

The longer the marriage, the harder truth becomes . . .

The narrator is one Mrs. Hawkins. She writes from Italy, a far cry from Kensington indeed, taking us back to her threadbare years in postwar London. In both locations our heroine soon uncovered difficulties: shady literary dealings; anonymous letters, blackmail, and even suicide.

Flappy Scott-Booth is the self-appointed queen bee of Badley Compton. While her husband Kenneth spends his days on the golf course, she is busy overseeing her beautiful house and gardens, and organising unforgettable events. Her life is a reflection of herself – impossibly perfect. Until the day that Hedda Harvey-Smith and her husband Charles move into the village. Into an even grander home than hers. Flappy is determined to show Hedda how things are done here in Badley Compton. But then she looks into Charles’s beautiful green eyes. And suddenly, her focus is elsewhere. She is only human, after all…

Every single one of Stephen Fry's ties - whether floral, fluorescent, football themed; striped or spotty, outrageous or simply debonair - tells an intimate tale about a moment in Stephen's life.Inspired by Stephen's hugely popular Instagram posts, this book will celebrate his expansive collection of man's greatest clothing companion: The Tie, in all it's sophisticated glory.Distinctively funny and offering witty asides, facts and personal stories, this book will make the perfect gift for anyone who has ever worn a tie.

In London, in the late 1950s, Anna, a novelist and a single mother, is struggling to cope as her personal life, her political certainties and her own sanity collapse around her. The Golden Notebook weaves together Anna’s story and her notebooks, exploring the lives and loves of a generation formed by the aftermath of war.

Marigold has spent her life taking care of those around her, and being an all-round leader in her quiet yet welcoming community. When she finds herself forgetting things, everyone quickly puts it down to her age. But something about Marigold isn’t quite right, and as Marigold’s condition worsens, her family must find ways to care for the woman who has always cared for them. Desperate to show their support, the local community comes together to celebrate Marigold and to show her that losing your memories doesn’t matter when there are people who will remember them for you....

The tale of Jacob Flanders, a lonely young man unable to reconcile his love of classical culture with the chaotic reality of World War I society, unfolds in a series of brief impressions and conversations, internal monologues, and letters. A sensitive examination of character development and the meaning of life, this 1922 novel features first-rate examples of Woolf's influential techniques.

When a man who calls himself a faith healer arrives in a small, west-coast Irish village, the community is soon under the spell of this charismatic stranger from the Balkans. One woman in particular, Fidelma McBride, becomes enthralled in a fatal attraction that leads to unimaginable consequences.

Seeking refuge in the cobbled streets of Montmartre, Yanne and her daughters live peacefully above their little chocolate shop. Nothing unusual marks them out. Then into their lives blows Zozie de l'Alba, the lady with the lollipop shoes.

Throughout her lifetime, Jane Austen wrote countless letters to her sister. But why did Cassandra burn them all? 1840: twenty three years after the death of her famous sister Jane, Cassandra Austen returns to the village of Kintbury, and the home of her family's friends, the Fowles. She knows that, in some dusty corner of the sprawling vicarage, there is a cache of family letters which hold secrets she can never allow to be revealed. As Cassandra recalls her youth and her relationship with her brilliant yet complex sister, she pieces together buried truths about Jane's history, and her own. And she faces a stark choice: should she act to protect Jane's reputation, or leave the contents of the letters to go unguarded into posterity?

It is 1950. In a devastating moment of clarity, Margery Benson abandons her dead-end job and advertises for an assistant to accompany her on an expedition. She is going to travel to the other side of the world to search for a beetle that may or may not exist. Enid Pretty, in her unlikely pink travel suit, is not the companion Margery had in mind. And yet together they will be drawn into an adventure that will exceed every expectation.

They will risk everything, break all the rules, and at the top of a red mountain, discover their best selves. This is a story that is less about what can be found than the belief it might be found; it is an intoxicating adventure story but it is also about what it means to be a woman and a tender exploration of a friendship that defies all boundaries.

In Mrs Harris MP, the honest as-ever old char impresses her employer with her no-nonsense political views to such an extent that he - an MP, no less - encourages her to become a voice for the people of Battersea and stand for election herself. The world of local politics, however, soon proves a test for a lady as straight-laced as Mrs Harris; political skulduggery, the glare of the media and the apparent betrayal of a trusted friend all becoming issues she just hadn't bargained on...

It's never too late to find yourself. Best friends Agnes and Bea decide to embark on one last adventure before their adult lives begin. For Agnes's mother Florence, a fresh chapter is starting as her youngest flies the nest and her marriage settles into a new routine. But she can't help feeling that something is missing. As Agnes travels to London and Florence follows her heart to Europe, both will discover a world of possibilities they never could have dreamed of. Because wherever you are in life, there is always time to finally become the person you were always meant to be.

Forced to move from the rural tranquillity of southern England to the northern mill town of Milton, Margaret Hale takes an instant dislike to the dirt and noise of her new home and its inhabitants - even the handsome cotton mill owner, John Thornton. But as she begins to understand the nature of the poverty, events conspire to throw her and Thornton together. Amidst the chaos of industrial unrest, they must learn to overcome the prejudices of class and admit their feelings for one another.

It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned, the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa, life is about to be transformed, as impoverished widow Mrs Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.

Set at the outbreak of World War II, Lady Sophia Garfield dreams of becoming a beautiful spy but manages not to notice a nest of German agents right under her nose. Until the murder of her maid and the kidnapping of her beloved bulldog force them on her attention, with heroic and absurd results.

Following the international critical acclaim of The Cost of Living, this final volume of Deborah Levy's 'Living Autobiography' is an exhilarating, thought-provoking and boldly intimate meditation on home and the spectres that haunt it.

'I began to wonder what myself and all unwritten and unseen women would possess in their property portfolios at the end of their lives. Literally, her physical property and possessions, and then everything else she valued, though it might not be valued by society. What might she claim, own, discard and bequeath? Or is she the real estate, owned by patriarchy? In this sense, Real Estate is a tricky business. We rent it and buy it, sell and inherit it - but we must also knock it down.'

Everything about life intrigues Alma Whittaker. Her passion for botany leads her far from home, from London to Peru to Tahiti, in pursuit of that rare specimen: knowledge. But as her careful studies draw her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, she meets the man who she will come to love - whose perspective, radically different from her own, will transform the way she understands the world.

Radiating with all the heart, soul and earthiness as its unforgettable heroine, The Signature of All Things is a captivating celebration of the workings of this world, and the mechanisms behind all life.

Serena Frome, the beautiful daughter of an Anglican bishop, has a brief affair with an older man during her final year at Cambridge, and finds herself being groomed for the intelligence services. Serena, a compulsive reader of novels, is sent on a mission which brings her into the literary world of Tom Healey.

'There once was a man who, one night between the main course and the sweet at a dinner party, went upstairs and locked himself in one of the bedrooms of the house of the people who were giving the dinner party...'

As time passes by and the consequences of this stranger's actions ripple outwards, touching the owners, the guests, the neighbours and the whole country, so Ali Smith draws us into a beautiful, strange place where everyone is so much more than they first appear...

Anthony Verey, a wealthy but disillusioned antiques dealer from London, hopes to remake his life in France. From the moment he arrives at the Mas Lunel, an isolated stone farmhouse in the hills of Ce´vennes, a frightening and unstoppable series of consequences is set in motion. Richard & Judy Bookclub. X rated, contains offensive language and explicit sex.

A journey aboard a ship to South America releases a young woman from the strictures of life in Edwardian London. Through her encounters with her fellow passengers, Rachel Vinrace is exposed to new ways of thinking, and is encouraged to explore what her life could be if she set aside her rigorous and cloistered upbringing.

Milly Theale is a young, beautiful and fabulously wealthy American. When she arrives in London and meets the equally beautiful but impoverished Kate Croy, they form an intimate friendship. But nothing is as it seems; materialism, romance, self-delusion and ultimately fatal illness insidiously contaminate the glamorous social whirl.

In September 1941, a young American woman strides up the steps of a hotel in Lyon, Vichy France. Her papers say she is a journalist. Her wooden leg is disguised by a determined gait and a distracting beauty. She is there to spark the resistance.

By 1942 Virginia Hall was the Gestapo's most urgent target, having infiltrated Vichy command, trained civilians in guerrilla warfare and sprung soldiers from Nazi prison camps. The first woman to go undercover for British SOE, her intelligence changed the course of the war - but her fight was still not over.

This is a spy history like no other, telling the story of the hunting accident that disabled her, the discrimination she fought and the secret life that helped her triumph over shocking adversity.