Set against the backdrop of an elegant Cornwall mansion before World War II and a vast continent-spanning canvas during the turbulent war years, this captivating story tells of an extraordinary young woman's coming of age, coming to grips with love and sadness, and in every sense of the term, coming home.... In 1935, Judith Dunbar is left behind at a British boarding school when her mother and baby sister go off to join her father in Singapore.

As in her worldwide best sellers The Shell Seekers and September, it is the richness of emotional seasons that has made Rosamunde Pilcher's novels beloved the world over. Now she invites listeners into long summer days on the coast of Cornwall - and into the stormy heart of newlywed Laura Haverstock. Shy, recovering from illness, and away from her husband, Laura's is a fearful heart on the verge of intimate discoveries...about herself, her family, and the source of true love within her.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Rosamunde Pilcher, Winter Solstice (the basis for the TV movie) is the story of five unforgettable characters, lonely and haunted strangers who find love and loyalty as a reborn family of friends during the Christmas holidays.

At the end of a long and useful life, Penelope Keeling's prized possession is The Shell Seekers, painted by her father, and symbolizing her unconventional life, from bohemian childhood to wartime romance. When her grown children learn their grandfather's work is now worth a fortune, each has an idea as to what Penelope should do. But as she recalls the passions, tragedies, and secrets of her life, she knows there is only one answer...and it lies in her heart.

At 27, Virginia Keile had been through the most intense experiences life had to offer - a magical first love ending in heartbreak, a suitable marriage, motherhood, and widowhood. All she wanted now was to take her daughter and son to a seaside cottage in Cornwall and help them recover. But Virginia's true love was there, waiting, hoping, praying that this time she would be strong enough to seize happiness, in The Empty House.

It seemed such an innocent deception. All Flora Waring had to do was play the part of Rose, her long-lost twin, for one weekend and meet the family of Rose’s fiancé. But when Flora is introduced to the Armstrong family, she realizes that she has inherited the secret scandal Rose created five years before...and left wounds that turn the man Flora loves against her.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

On the last day of her mother’s life, Rebecca learns she has a family in Cornwall and sets out to find the grandfather and cousin she has never known. But only the enigmatic Joss Gardner, the outsider who seems to be the apple of her grandfather’s eye, can help her understand the dark currents that lie behind her family’s loving reception.

After years in the United States, Jane returns to the tranquil Scottish estate Elvie, where she spent a magical childhood. Memories of Elvie had always summoned the image of Sinclair, the rakish man Jane had once dreamed of marrying, but now that she is home, she finds Sinclair a different man. His charm has a purpose, and Jane can no longer trust him...or herself, in The End of Summer.

A Place Like Home is a collection of Rosamunde Pilcher’s most enduring short stories, never before published in audiobook form. The collection contains 15 stories, which range from "The Holiday", in which a wife surprises her husband of 25 years with a holiday full of Mediterranean sunshine, red rocks, and blue seas in an effort to rekindle the romance they had before children; "The Eye of Love", which takes the listener to the bright spring sunshine and sparkling waves of a Northumbrian village where old flames meet again; and more.

Whenever Selina asked about her late father, the grandmother who raised her changed the subject. The chance discovery of a photograph gave Selina hope that he was still alive and sent her searching for him on a small Spanish island. In this lush paradise, Selina found George Dyer, a writer who would help her solve the mystery of her past...and might hold the key to her future.

Stoneybridge is a small town on the west coast of Ireland where all the families know one another. When Chicky Starr decides to take an old, decaying mansion set high on the cliffs overlooking the windswept Atlantic Ocean and turn it into a restful place for a holiday by the sea, everyone thinks she is crazy. Helped by Rigger (a bad boy turned good who is handy around the house) and Orla, her niece (a whiz at business), Chicky is finally ready to welcome the first guests to Stone House’s big warm kitchen, log fires, and understated elegant bedrooms.

Ria lived on Tara Road in Dublin with her dashing husband, Danny, and their two children. She fully believed she was happily married, right up until the day Danny told her he was leaving her to be with his young, pregnant girlfriend. By a chance phone call, Ria meets Marilyn, a woman from New England unable to come to terms with her only son's death and now separated from her husband. The two women exchange houses for the summer with extraordinary consequences, each learning that the other has a deep secret that can never be revealed.

Caroline travels to Scotland, hoping to make contact with a brother she hasn’t seen for years, and return in time for her wedding to the man her strong-willed stepmother thought so suitable. Then a sudden snow strands her in an isolated house with a young man recovering from tragedy. Both are on the brink of terrible mistakes, but perhaps they can save each other.

From a child’s first knowledge of death, through city and country, to an elderly woman's newfound freedom, Pilcher’s The Blue Bedroom & Other Stories is “breathtaking...a book you want to keep....” (Grand Rapids Press).

When Lord Frampton dies in a skiing accident, a beautiful young woman named Phaedra appears at his funeral - claiming to be the Lord’s illegitimate daughter. In his will, Lord Frampton has left the priceless Frampton suite of sapphires to this interloper, confirming her claim and outraging his three adult sons and widow. Eventually, however, Phaedra’s sweet nature thaws the frosty relationships. She becomes the daughter that Antoinette Frampton never had and a wise and compassionate granddaughter to the formidable Dowager Lady Frampton.

Autumn 1928. Three young women are on their way to India, each with a new life in mind. Rose, a beautiful but naive bride-to-be, is anxious about leaving her family and marrying a man she hardly knows. Victoria, her bridesmaid couldn't be happier to get away from her overbearing mother, and is determined to find herself a husband. And Viva, their inexperienced chaperone, is in search of the India of her childhood, ghosts from the past and freedom.

Mary Jago had donated her own bone marrow to save the life of someone she didn’t know. And this generous act led directly to the bitter break-up of her affair with Alistair. For him, it was as though her beauty had been plundered. But the man whose life she had saved would change Mary’s life in a way she could never have imagined.

In the long, hot summer of 1976, a group of young people is camping in Wyvis Hall. Adam, Rufus, Shiva, Vivien and Zosie hardly ask why they are there or how they are to live; they scavenge, steal and sell the family heirlooms. Ten years later, the bodies of a woman and child are discovered in the Hall’s animal cemetery. Which woman? And whose child?

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.... The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives - presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave.

Fate has not been kind to Gemma Hardy. Orphaned then neglected, young Gemma seemed destined for a life of hardship and loneliness. Yet her bright spirit burns strong. Fiercely intelligent, singularly determined, Gemma overcomes each challenge and setback, growing stronger and more certain of her path. Now an independent young woman, she accepts a position as an au pair on the remote and beautiful Orkney Islands. But Gemma’s biggest trial is about to begin....

Ruby Lennox begins narrating her life at the moment of conception, and from there takes us on a whirlwind tour of the 20th century as seen through the eyes of an English girl determined to learn about her family and its secrets.

In the spirit of Zoë Heller’s Notes on a Scandal and Tom Perrotta’s Mrs. Fletcher, an explosive and thought-provoking novel about the far-reaching repercussions of an illicit relationship between a young girl and a man 20 years her senior. Masterfully told from three diverse viewpoints - victim, perpetrator, and witness - Putney is a subtle and enormously powerful novel about consent, agency, and what we tell ourselves to justify what we do, and what others do to us.

For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental.

When Ravi Kapoor, an overworked London doctor, reaches the breaking point with his difficult father-in-law, he asks his wife: “Can’t we just send him away somewhere? Somewhere far, far away.” His prayer is seemingly answered when Ravi’s entrepreneurial cousin sets up a retirement home in India, hoping to re-create in Bangalore an elegant lost corner of England. Several retirees are enticed by the promise of indulgent living at a bargain price, but upon arriving, they are dismayed to find that restoration of the once sophisiticated hotel has stalled....

Vivacious, young Hester Christie tries to run her home like clockwork, as would befit the wife of British Army officer, Tim Christie. However hard Mrs Tim strives for seamless living amidst the other army wives, she is always moving flat-out to remember groceries, rule lively children, side-step village gossip and placate her husband with bacon, eggs, toast and marmalade. Left alone for months at a time whilst her husband is with his regiment, Mrs Tim resolves to keep a diary of events large and small in her family life.

The charm of spending the Christmas holidays in South Wales, with its crumbling castles and ancient myths, seems the perfect distraction from the nightmares that have plagued literary agent Lyn Ravenshaw since the loss of her baby five years ago. Instead she meets an emotionally fragile young widow who's convinced that Lyn's recurring dreams have drawn her to Castle Farm for an important purpose - and she's running out of time.

A long-forgotten secret, a scandalous attraction and a place where two women's lives are changed forever. 1926: Violet Armstrong is one of the few remaining members of staff working at the grand Evergreen Spa Hotel as it closes down over winter. Only a handful of guests are left, including the heir to a rich grazing family, his sister and her suave suitor. When a snowstorm moves in, the hotel is cut off and they are all trapped. No-one could have predicted what would unfold.

The villagers of Thrush Green celebrate Christmas traditionally, in a way that has hardly changed over the generations. Children eagerly hang up their stockings, families go to church together and everyone enjoys the treats of the festive season. And when it snows as the carol singers make their way round the cottages on the green, it looks as if Christmas will be perfect this year. But not everything is as peaceful as it seems.

You won't remember Mr. Heming. He was the estate agent who showed you around your comfortable home, suggested a financial package, negotiated a price with the owner, and called you with the good news. The less good news is that, all these years later, he still has the key. That's absurd, you laugh. Of all the many hundreds of houses he has sold, why would he still have the key to mine? The answer is; he has the keys to them all. William Heming's most at home in a stranger's private things.

Set against the backdrop of an elegant Cornwall mansion before World War II and a vast continent-spanning canvas during the turbulent war years, this captivating story tells of an extraordinary young woman's coming of age, coming to grips with love and sadness, and in every sense of the term, coming home.... In 1935, Judith Dunbar is left behind at a British boarding school when her mother and baby sister go off to join her father in Singapore.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Rosamunde Pilcher, Winter Solstice (the basis for the TV movie) is the story of five unforgettable characters, lonely and haunted strangers who find love and loyalty as a reborn family of friends during the Christmas holidays.

As in her worldwide best sellers The Shell Seekers and September, it is the richness of emotional seasons that has made Rosamunde Pilcher's novels beloved the world over. Now she invites listeners into long summer days on the coast of Cornwall - and into the stormy heart of newlywed Laura Haverstock. Shy, recovering from illness, and away from her husband, Laura's is a fearful heart on the verge of intimate discoveries...about herself, her family, and the source of true love within her.

Oliver Dobbs was a writer first and a man second. To him other people were tools. Even though he had broken Victoria Bradshaw’s heart once, when he arrived on her doorstep with a two-year-old son, she found she could not refuse him, and the three of them set out for a castle in Scotland. There, Victoria meets the new laird and finds her crushed spirit awakening.

After years in the United States, Jane returns to the tranquil Scottish estate Elvie, where she spent a magical childhood. Memories of Elvie had always summoned the image of Sinclair, the rakish man Jane had once dreamed of marrying, but now that she is home, she finds Sinclair a different man. His charm has a purpose, and Jane can no longer trust him...or herself, in The End of Summer.

At the end of a long and useful life, Penelope Keeling's prized possession is The Shell Seekers, painted by her father, and symbolizing her unconventional life, from bohemian childhood to wartime romance. When her grown children learn their grandfather's work is now worth a fortune, each has an idea as to what Penelope should do. But as she recalls the passions, tragedies, and secrets of her life, she knows there is only one answer...and it lies in her heart.

A Place Like Home is a collection of Rosamunde Pilcher’s most enduring short stories, never before published in audiobook form. The collection contains 15 stories, which range from "The Holiday", in which a wife surprises her husband of 25 years with a holiday full of Mediterranean sunshine, red rocks, and blue seas in an effort to rekindle the romance they had before children; "The Eye of Love", which takes the listener to the bright spring sunshine and sparkling waves of a Northumbrian village where old flames meet again; and more.

It seemed such an innocent deception. All Flora Waring had to do was play the part of Rose, her long-lost twin, for one weekend and meet the family of Rose’s fiancé. But when Flora is introduced to the Armstrong family, she realizes that she has inherited the secret scandal Rose created five years before...and left wounds that turn the man Flora loves against her.

Caroline travels to Scotland, hoping to make contact with a brother she hasn’t seen for years, and return in time for her wedding to the man her strong-willed stepmother thought so suitable. Then a sudden snow strands her in an isolated house with a young man recovering from tragedy. Both are on the brink of terrible mistakes, but perhaps they can save each other.

On the last day of her mother’s life, Rebecca learns she has a family in Cornwall and sets out to find the grandfather and cousin she has never known. But only the enigmatic Joss Gardner, the outsider who seems to be the apple of her grandfather’s eye, can help her understand the dark currents that lie behind her family’s loving reception.