Restless, troubled Rosamond Hunter has spent most of her life running away from the past, filled with guilt about her involuntary role in her mother's death. When her nursing job brings her back to Fairfleet, her childhood home, to care for an elderly refugee, she is forced to confront the ghosts that have haunted her for so long.
Her patient, Benny Gault, first came to Fairfleet in 1939, having fled Nazi Germany on a Kindertransport train.
As his health fails, he and Rosamond begin to confide in each other. At first their tentative friendship revolved around the love they both shared for Rosamond's glamorous grandmother, Harriet, but as their trust in each other grows, guilty secrets are exposed and history is turned on its head.
Her patient, Benny Gault, first came to Fairfleet in 1939, having fled Nazi Germany on a Kindertransport train.
As his health fails, he and Rosamond begin to confide in each other. At first their tentative friendship revolved around the love they both shared for Rosamond's glamorous grandmother, Harriet, but as their trust in each other grows, guilty secrets are exposed and history is turned on its head.
After her soldier husband is seriously injured and her marriage disintegrates, Meredith returns to Letchford, the school run by her father, outwardly a typically English headmaster. This is a tranquil refuge for Meredith. Until a shocking discovery is made in the history room. The police are called but all is not as it seems. On her journey to untangle the truth Meredith will discover that a manipulative member of staff is controlling goings-on, and that her own father's reputation is now at risk. More than one person is hiding a past filled with complicated secrets.
As the bunting goes up for the Golden Jubilee party in a small village old family secrets are about to boil over. Ten-year old Jessamy Winter vanished from a Silver Jubilee party back in 1977. Her disappearance is woven into disturbing events in her family going back to the end of World War II. As the Jubilee cake is cut Jessamy's mother holds her breath to see whether her daughter will step out from the marquee and back into her life.
How do you rebuild you life when the world lies in ruins?
Alix and Gregor are two young people pushed apart by a war that will destroy everything they hold dear: family, friends and loyalty, as the competing horrors wrought by Hitler and Stalin devastate central Europe. A novel about love and betrayal, hatred and heroism - a reminder that, even in the worst of times, the most courageous acts of kindness are possible.
Two women, divided by fifty years, united by their grief. Minna comes to the Dorset coast to recover from a terrible bereavement. Walking on the beach with her husband she finds the skeleton of a dead GI, a discovery that will bring her into contact with the enigmatic Felix, a woman who also has to come to terms with the past.
The Times 12.6.2007
