Megan waits at the school gates for her six-year-old son, Daniel. As the playground empties, panic bubbles inside her. Daniel is nowhere to be found. According to his teacher, Daniel’s father picked up his son. Except he and Megan are no longer together. After years of being controlled by her cruel husband, Megan finally found the courage to divorce him. Hands trembling, she dials his number, but the line is dead. Six years later, Megan gets the call she has dreamt about for years. Daniel has walked into a police station in a remote town just a few miles away....

From the queen of white-knuckle suspense and searing family drama comes a harrowing glimpse into the real world behind the headlines. This is a novel of immense power and compassion - one that will move all who listen to it. Tina is a young woman hiding from her grief on the streets of the Cross. On a cold night in the middle of winter, she breaks all her own rules when she agrees to go home with a customer. What she finds in his house will change her life forever. The Boy Under the Table is gritty, shocking, moving and, ultimately, filled with hope.

When single mother Darcy’s son falls from a rope bridge at a local playground, life stands still. She clutches his small, limp body, frozen, until a pair of strong hands push her aside, and she watches as George, a local doctor, saves her son’s life. George, with his twinkling hazel eyes, easy charm and lack of wedding band is almost too good to be true, but coffee becomes lunch, lunch becomes dinner, and soon they can’t go an evening without seeing each other.

Once, so very long ago, she watched him like this when he came to pick her up from a date. Her stomach fluttered and burned with infatuation and desire. She would watch him walk up the path and think, 'This must be love.' But that was so very long ago. Now Liz is wary and afraid. She has made a terrible mistake, and it cannot be undone.

If you passed Alice on the street, you couldn’t help but smile. At how she holds hands with her husband, Jack, who she has been with since she was at university. At the way she admires her three boys, the center of her universe. But if you looked very closely, you’d see how tightly she holds Jack’s hand, afraid to let go. You’d see how carefully she watches her boys, scared to look away. She has told Jack that she ran away from home when she was younger - but she didn’t tell him the whole story.

All Malia needed was a single litre of milk, and now she's surrounded by police and Zach has disappeared. Detective Ali Greenberg knows that this is not the best case for her - not with her history, but she has to get back to work at some point. Edna is worried about the new residents at the boardinghouse. She knows Mary would turn in her grave if she knew the kinds of people her son was letting in. And then there is someone else. Someone whose heart is broken.

Birdy thought she would have to wait until she was free again to see Rose, but now Rose has been convicted of a shocking crime and she and Birdy will be together. Birdy has been saving all her anger for Rose. It is Rose who should have protected her and kept her safe. Birdy was little but Rose was big, and she knows Rose could have saved her. This is a story about monsters who hide in plain sight and about the secrets we keep from ourselves. It is about children who are betrayed and adults who fail them.

A short story for fans of Jodi Picoult and Anita Shreve. Step into the fragile domestic world of Roar and discover the unforgettable voice of Nicole Trope, best-selling author of The Secrets in Silence, Three Hours Late and The Boy Under the Table. The baby sleeps peacefully, filled with milk and contentment. The man on the bed breathes his way into the darkness, filled with rage. Was there ever really a choice?

Rachel’s worst nightmare comes true when a rare auto-immune illness leaves 4-year-old daughter Emily in a coma the doctors say she may never come out of. And Rachel has to make a heartbreaking decision - one that her ex-husband, Emily’s dad James, doesn’t agree with. Terrified she’s going to lose her daughter for good, Rachel knows she must find a way to keep the hope alive for Emily. But there is only one person she can turn to for help to convince James - and it’s his new wife, Eva. 

Heather’s beloved daughter, Kayla, is her world. She is 15, a brilliant basketball player and a fierce friend. Heather and Kayla have always had a special relationship. For so many years it was just the two of them, watching Friends, baking cupcakes and laughing together. But now Kayla knows her time is short, and she wants to give something back to the mother she loves more than anyone else in the world. A gift that will change Heather’s life.  

Nathan West loved his wife Laura with all his heart. But now she’s gone, taken from him in a seemingly random act of violence. Laura was the glue that held their family together. And for Nathan, life without her feels almost meaningless. As he tries to find hope in the darkness, his three young daughters express their grief in different and challenging ways - with one set on a path of self-destruction that could devastate their family all over again. 

As a child, Vicky Hall never had the sort of family she wanted. The least important person in her new step-family, ignored by her mother in favour of her two younger half siblings, Vicky was always an afterthought. Sitting alone at her graduation ceremony at the age of 21, she vows to create her own family and her own life, one which is full of the love and attention she has always craved.

Everyone has an opinion. Everyone has a secret.  

Two-and-a-half-year-old Holly is playing happily in a pink, plastic playhouse, while her mother Rachel sips coffee and chats with a friend nearby. It should be an ordinary day for all of them. But, in the blink of an eye, it turns into every family’s worst nightmare. Holly is taken by a stranger and never found. Nine years later, Rachel is living a quiet life in Dorset. She’s tried to keep things together since the traumatic day when she lost her eldest daughter.

Milly always dreamed of being a mother. Adopted herself, she has always imagined a powerful, intimate connection with a child of her own. So when she and her husband Matt are told they can’t have children, her dreams are shattered. But then their loved ones offer the ultimate gift - Milly’s best friend Anna and Matt’s brother Jack will be donors, so that Milly can finally have a chance to be a mother. Except none of the four people involved are prepared for the feelings that will threaten their most important relationships as their daughter receives a heartbreaking diagnosis.