For twenty-six-year-old Perdita Whitney, life in India with a father she hardly remembers seems just like a fairy tale. His generosity and affection gradually heal the wounds in her soul. And her new-found...

It is ten years after the end of the Second World War, and Mary Alderbrook – known to family and friends as Ming – feels life is passing her by. Though her sisters are all happily married and settled,...

This is the story of the Alderbrook sisters; of their volatile relationships with their parents, their friends and each other; of the dangers and deprivations of wartime London; of their roles in a secret...

It is 1968 and Flixe Suvarov, recently widowed and frighteningly short of money, is struggling to come to terms with her new life. Running a small party-planning business as she nurses a potential political...

The Mall, VE night 1945: the sky is glittering with fireworks and searchlights as jubilant Londoners celebrate the end the Second World War. Yet for some the waiting is not over. Julia Gillingham’s husband,...

Evelyn Markham, devastated by reports that her fiancé is ‘missing in action’ in the trenches of France, leaves for Russia and the breathtaking opulence of her cousins’ mansion in Petrograd. But it is...