Vine is the recipient of three Edgars and four Gold Dagger Awards.

    One dark secret. A story of aristocratic families and tangled secrets for anyone who can't get enough of Downton Abbey.England, Christmas 1936.For the first time since Alix Richardson's childhood, the great lake is freezing, bringing the promise of skating and a Christmas kept in old-fashioned style in Wyncrag, her grandfather's great house above the lake. But she returns to find the house - and her family - still caught in the icy grip of her iron-willed grandmother Lady Caroline.As the scattered members of the family return from their lives to the winter wonderland of the frozen north - Edwin, the photographer; Saul, the politician; Perdita, the daughter who never knew her parents - so too do others. Across the lake, at Grindley Hall, theatre director Hal Grindley comes home from New York with a secret of his own, to find his brothers all too anxious to relieve him of his share in the family business empire. Michael Wrexham, a young and brilliant aircraft designer, hasn't set foot near the lake since he fell through the ice and almost drowned fifteen years ago, while an enigmatic American film star adds a touch of mysterious glamour to the winter gatherings.Amid the glittering backdrop of winter parties and skating on the lake, both Alix and Hal begin to ask uncomfortable questions - about their families, their pasts and about the two black-shirted men from the south who have come to stay, bringing the long shadows of fascism to this remote corner of England.When one of the Blackshirts is found dead under the ice, the arrival of Special Branch gives urgency to Alix and Hal's inquiries and casts a sinister light on Lady Caroline's long reign at Wyncrag. But neither realises how dark their families' secrets are - and both must work to save a previous generation's tragedy from coming back to haunt them all....An atmospheric, multi-layered story of great families, their eccentricities, and their secrets, set amid a backdrop of the fells, lakes and ancient towns of the English Lake District where the author's family once owned a house like Wyncrag.Elizabeth Edmondson is the author of over 20 novels, including the period novels of espionage and redemption Voyage of Innocence and The Villa Dante and a number of bestselling historical romances under the name Elizabeth Aston.

    She imagined every detail, from the Vivienne Westwood bustiers hanging next to satin gowns, to sequinned cupcake dresses adorning the walls.At the launch of Village Vintage, Phoebe feels the tingle of excitement as customers snap up the fairytale dresses. Her dream has come true, but a secret from her past is casting a shadow over her new venture.Then one day she meets Therese, an elderly Frenchwoman with a collection to sell, apart from one piece that she won't part with …As Therese tells the story of the little blue coat, Phoebe feels a profound connection with her own life, one that will help her heal the pain of her past and allow her to love again.

    In 1957, sitting in his lodgings in Accra, he urgently sets out to write his story. He feels he cannot take one step further, or even hardly a breath, without looking back at all that has befallen him.He is an ordinary man, both petty and heroic, but he has seen extraordinary things. He has worked and wandered around the world - as a soldier, an engineer, a UN observer - trying to follow his childhood ambition to better himself. And he has had a strange and tumultuous marriage. Mai Kirwan was a great beauty of Sligo in the 1920s, a vivid mind, but an elusive and mysterious figure too. Jack married her, and shared his life with her, but in time she slipped from his grasp.A heart-breaking portrait of one man's life - of his demons and his lost love - The Temporary Gentleman is, ultimately, a novel about Jack's last bid for freedom, from the savage realities of the past and from himself.

    When she learns that her old friend and grandmother’s caretaker has gone missing, Zoe and her fifteen-year-old daughter return to England to help.Zoe dreads seeing her estranged mother, who left when Zoe was seven to travel the world. As the four generations of women reunite, the emotional pain of the past is awakened. And to complicate matters further, Zoe must also confront the ex-boyfriend she betrayed many years before.Anxieties spike when tragedy befalls another woman in the village. As the mystery turns more sinister, new grief melds with old betrayal. Now the four Fairchild women will be tested in ways they couldn’t imagine as they contend with dangers within and without, desperate to heal themselves and their relationships with each other.

    Back then Betty Stern was an eighteen-year-old knockout working at her grandparents’ lakeside resort. The “Catskills of the Midwest” was the perfect place for Betty to prepare for bigger things. She’d head to college in New York City. Her career as a fashion editor would flourish. But first, she’d enjoy a wondrous last summer at the beach falling deeply in love with an irresistible college boy and competing in the annual Miss South Haven pageant. On the precipice of a well-planned life, Betty’s future was limitless.Decades later, the choices of that long-ago season still reverberate for Betty, now known as Boop. Especially when her granddaughter comes to her with a dilemma that echoes Boop’s memories of first love, broken hearts, and faraway dreams. It’s time to finally face the past—for the sake of her family and her own happiness. Maybe in reconciling the life she once imagined with the life she’s lived, Boop will discover it’s never too late for a second chance.