One Summer at Deer's Leap


Elizabeth Elgin - 1999
    Cassie Johns is a young, lovely writer on the threshold of success after a less-than-silver-spooned girlhood. Driving through the glorious countryside to a fancy-dress party in the Vale of Boland, she gives a lift to a mysteriously attractive young man wearing the uniform of an RAF pilot: ready for the party Cassie assumes. But in the evening there is no sign of the airman.Cassie – hitherto rational, sceptical, a woman of her times – becomes obsessed by Jack Hunter, a pilot whose plane crashed in 1944, but whose long-ago love for a girl at Deer’s Leap makes him unable to rest in peace. Cassie’s love for the dead hero takes her into an unknown war-torn past, where old passion burns and becomes entwined with new.

Second Chance of Sunshine


Pamela Evans - 2004
    Blessed with financial security and a loving husband, Angie has everything that Molly lacks. Brian Hawkins is too idle to seek regular employment, and there’s never enough money to provide for Molly’s six-year-old daughter Rosa. What’s more, Brian believes his wife’s place is in the home, and, although it’s 1956 and women are doing jobs they’d never dreamed of before the war, Molly is forbidden to go out to work. But when Angie’s father dies suddenly and leaves Molly a share in the Beckett pottery, it’s on the condition that she takes a job there. Seizing the chance to bring in much-needed income, Molly gains strength from her new-found independence – a strength she will need to take her through the tragedy that lies ahead...

Lost Boy Found


Kirsten Alexander - 2019
    Originally published in Australia as Half Moon Lake.In 1913, on a summer's day at Half Moon Lake, Louisiana, four-year-old Sonny Davenport walks into the woods and never returns. The boy's mysterious disappearance from the family's lake house makes front-page news in their home town of Opelousas. John Henry and Mary Davenport are wealthy and influential, and will do anything to find their son. For two years, the Davenports search across the South, offer increasingly large rewards and struggle not to give in to despair. Then, at the moment when all hope seems lost, the boy is found in the company of a tramp. But is he truly Sonny Davenport? The circumstances of his discovery raise more questions than answers. And when Grace Mill, an unwed farm worker, travels from Alabama to lay claim to the child, newspapers, townsfolk, even the Davenports' own friends, take sides. As the tramp's kidnapping trial begins, and two desperate mothers fight for ownership of the boy, the people of Opelousas discover that truth is more complicated than they'd ever dreamed.

The Woman Who Left


Josephine Cox - 2001
    Living and working with Ben's father, Ronnie, they are quietly contented. But when Ronnie dies, their whole world changes. Ben's lazy brother, Jacob, returns, convinced he stands to inherit Ronnie's small fortune. And he means to have his brother's wife; though just as she did years before, Louise warns him off. Jacob, however, is not so easily dismissed. When he realises Ben will inherit everything, Jacob is beside himself with rage, and commits a terrible deed, one that threatens to destroy everything his brother and Louise hold dear...

Commonwealth


Ann Patchett - 2016
    Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny’s mother, Beverly—thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another.Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.#1 New York Times Bestseller

The Last Letter from Your Lover


Jojo Moyes - 2008
    When Jennifer Stirling wakes up in the hospital, she can remember nothing-not the tragic car accident that put her there, not her husband, not even who she is. She feels like a stranger in her own life until she stumbles upon an impassioned letter, signed simply "B", asking her to leave her husband. Years later, in 2003, a journalist named Ellie discovers the same enigmatic letter in a forgotten file in her newspaper's archives. She becomes obsessed by the story and hopeful that it can resurrect her faltering career. Perhaps if these lovers had a happy ending she will find one to her own complicated love life, too. Ellie's search will rewrite history and help her see the truth about her own modern romance. A spellbinding, intoxicating love story with a knockout ending, The Last Letter from Your Lover will appeal to the readers who have made One Day and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society bestsellers.

Candles in the Storm


Rita Bradshaw - 2003
    It's during another storm fifteen years later that her father and brothers are lost and Daisy rescues William, heir of a wealthy Southwick family, with whom she falls in love. Soon, as her reward for saving him, Daisy is working for William's irascible aunt, while local lad Alf continues to court her. Warned off by Daisy's grandmother, William denies his own feelings and so it will be many years later, after much hardship and turmoil, that Daisy finds the happiness she deserves, amidst the drama of the Great War.

The Garden of Lost and Found


Harriet Evans - 2019
    Liddy Horner discovers her husband, the world-famous artist Sir Edward Horner, burning his best-known painting The Garden of Lost and Found days before his sudden death.Nightingale House was the Horner family's beloved home - a gem of design created to inspire happiness - and it was here Ned painted 'The Garden of Lost and Found', capturing his children on a perfect day, playing in the rambling Eden he and Liddy made for them.One magical moment. Before it all came tumbling down...When Ned and Liddy's great-granddaughter Juliet is sent the key to Nightingale House, she opens the door onto a forgotten world. The house holds its mysteries close but she is in search of answers. For who would choose to destroy what they love most? Whether Ned's masterpiece - or, in Juliet's case, her own children's happiness.Something shattered this corner of paradise. But what?

Five Years From Now


Paige Toon - 2018
    . .  I went from feeling warm and fuzzy to shock, delight before, finally, well – you'll just have to read it!'GIOVANNA FLETCHERWhat if you met the right person at the wrong time?   Nell and Van meet as children when their parents fall in love, but soon they are forced worlds apart. Five years later, they find each other.  Their bond is rekindled and new feelings take hold, but once again they must separate.   For the next two decades, fate brings Nell and Van together every five years, as life and circumstance continue to divide them. Will they ever find true happiness? And will it be together?  ‘One day, maybe five years from now, you’ll look back and understand why this happened…’  'Filled with warmth and poignancy, Five Years From Now is a page-turner and a delight' JANE COSTELLO 'Simply gorgeous'SUN** PRAISE FOR PAIGE TOON ** 'You'll love it, cry buckets and be uplifted' MARIAN KEYES 'Paige really ratchets up the tension. You'll be in a reading frenzy by the end'LISA JEWELL ‘Gave me all the feels . . . I loved it’LINDSEY KELK ‘Poignant and lovely, warm and wise’MILLY JOHNSON ‘A gorgeous, warm novel’ADELE PARKS ‘Paige’s writing is brilliant!’MHAIRI McFARLANE ‘Wonderfully heartfelt… her best book yet’ heat, five star review 'For smart, romantic fiction, look no further than the new book from bestselling Paige Toon' RED 'Witty, fun and impossible to put down!' CLOSER

The House Across the Street


Lesley Pearse - 2018
    The woman who lives there, Gloria, is the most glamorous neighbour on the avenue, owning a fashionable dress shop in Bexhill-on-Sea. But who is the woman who arrives in the black car most Saturdays while Gloria is at work? Sometimes she brings women to the house, and other times the women come with children.Then one night, the house burns down. In the wreckage, the bodies of Gloria and her daughter are found. Katy is sure the unexplained strangers must be responsible, until her father is arrested and charged with murder.Surely the police have arrested the wrong person? Is the rest of the street safe. Can Katy find the truth before it’s too late?

Rosa's Island


Val Wood - 2001
    Mr Drew's religious fervor holds a dark secret; Jim, the eldest son, is terrified of something from his past; Delia longs to escape from the island and tall, handsome Matthew wants only one thing - Rosa herself. Rosa's background is one of mystery, but Mr Drew knows the secret of Rosa's past - and so do the two mysterious Irishmen who come back to the island after many years to threaten everything Rosa holds dear...

Under Ground


Megan Marsnik - 2015
    Her parents have died, her food is dwindling and the rent is due. When a stranger arrives bearing a note from an uncle, inviting Katka to join him and his wife in America, she leaves all that she has held dear to rebuild her life across the ocean. On the voyage to New York, she becomes friends with the stranger and begins to fall in love. But at Ellis Island, they are separated when he is detained by authorities as a suspected anarchist. Alone, Katka continues her journey to her uncle’s house on the rough and tumble Iron Range in northern Minnesota. Soon she is immersed in a lively community of iron miners and begins publishing an underground newspaper about their struggles and the heroism of the women on the Iron Range, as they are swept into a tumultuous strike that will change their lives forever. “Under Ground” is a work of fiction inspired by true events.

Catching the Current


Jenny Pattrick - 2005
    However Conrad - a talented and impetuous Faroeman - finds he cannot escape his past.In this companion novel to the bestselling Denniston novels, a free spirit is pitted against the forces of tradition. This is Conrad's story, and that of the unusual woman Anahuia. It is a tale of new lands and old songs, of seafaring and war and the search for love.

Dream a Little Dream


Giovanna Fletcher - 2015
    Sure she's been single for the last five years, and has to spend an uncomfortable amount of time around her ex-boyfriend, his perfect new girlfriend and all their mutual friends. And yes, her job as a PA to one of the most disgusting men in London is mind-numbingly tedious and her career is a constant disappointment to her mother. But it's really okay. She's happy (ish).But it's not surprising that when Sarah starts dreaming about a handsome stranger, she begins to look forward to falling asleep every night. Reality isn't nearly as exciting. That is until her dream-stranger makes an unexpected real-life appearance, leaving Sarah questioning everything she thought she wanted.Because no one ever really finds the person of their dreams... do they?

The Seven Sisters


Lucinda Riley - 2014
    Each of them is handed a tantalizing clue to her true heritage—a clue which takes Maia across the world to a crumbling mansion in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Once there, she begins to put together the pieces of her story and its beginnings.Eighty years earlier in Rio’s Belle Epoque of the 1920s, Izabela Bonifacio’s father has aspirations for his daughter to marry into the aristocracy. Meanwhile, architect Heitor da Silva Costa is devising plans for an enormous statue, to be called Christ the Redeemer, and will soon travel to Paris to find the right sculptor to complete his vision. Izabela—passionate and longing to see the world—convinces her father to allow her to accompany him and his family to Europe before she is married. There, at Paul Landowski’s studio and in the heady, vibrant cafes of Montparnasse, she meets ambitious young sculptor Laurent Brouilly, and knows at once that her life will never be the same again.In this sweeping, epic tale of love and loss—the first in a unique, spellbinding series of seven novels—Lucinda Riley showcases her storytelling talent like never before.