For the first time, the girls caught sight of the turreted, castle-like building that would be home for the next nine months, the four towers of the main houses nestled in the hills, with the cliffs behind, leading down to the still turquoise sea. Maggie loves teaching English at beautiful Downey House but she is less keen on planning her wedding to dependable Stan. Instead, she's working on ignoring her crush on David McDonald, who teaches English at the local boys' school.

Flora is forced to move back to the tiny island of Mure from the bright lights of London. It's tough: even the beautiful landscapes and bright blue sea can't lift her spirits - she's too busy looking after her dad and her feckless brothers. Then she chances upon her mum's collection of recipes and begins to cook her way through it. As she reconnects with her family and the place she was born, might she also find herself?

As the summer holidays start, scandal hits Downey House. The attraction between Maggie Adair, the fiery, committed English teacher at Downey House and David McDonald, a teacher at the local boys' school, has escalated - and now both are facing an uncertain future. The girls of Downey House - mercurial Fliss, glamorous Alice and shy, dependable Simone - are facing long summers at home. But the new term is not far away - and it will bring new pupils and lots of fresh new challenges.... 

Given a backroom computer job when the beloved Birmingham library she works in turns into a downsized retail complex, Nina misses her old role terribly - dealing with people, greeting her regulars, making sure everyone gets the right books for their needs. Then a new business nobody else wants catches her eye: owning a tiny little bookshop bus up in the Scottish Highlands.

As dawn breaks over the Pont Neuf, and the cobbled alleyways of Paris come to life, Anna Trent is already awake and at work; mixing and stirring the finest, smoothest, richest chocolate; made entirely by hand, it is sold to the grandes dames of Paris. It's a huge shift from the chocolate factory she worked in at home in the north of England. But when an accident changed everything, Anna was thrown back in touch with her French teacher, Claire

Ever dreamed of starting over? Issy Randall can bake. No, more than that - Issy can create stunning, mouth-wateringly divine cakes. After a childhood spent in her beloved Grampa Joe’s bakery she has undoubtedly inherited his talent. So when she’s made redundant from her safe but dull City job, Issy decides to seize the moment and open up her own café. It should be a piece of cake, right?

Were you a sherbet lemon or chocolate lime fan? Penny chews or hard boiled sweeties (you do get more for your money that way)? The jangle of your pocket money… the rustle of the pink and green striped paper bag… Rosie Hopkins thinks leaving her busy London life, and her boyfriend Gerard, to sort out her elderly Aunt Lilian's sweetshop in a small country village is going to be dull. Boy is she wrong. Lilian Hopkins has spent her life running Lipton's sweetshop, through wartime and family feuds. As she struggles with the idea that it might finally be time to settle up, she also wrestles with the secret history hidden behind the jars of beautifully coloured sweets. Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweetshop of Dreams - a novel - with recipes.

The streets of London are the perfect place to discover your dreams.... They may be twin sisters, but Lizzie and Penny Berry are complete opposites - Penny is blonde, thin and outrageous; Lizzie is quiet, thoughtful and, well, definitely not thin. But they both share a desperate desire to DO something with their lives. When out of the blue they learn they have a grandmother living in Chelsea, who asks them to flat-sit her King's Road pad while she is in hospital, the girls' ambitions finally seem to be falling into place.

Carmen has always worked in her local department store. So, when the gorgeous old building closes its doors for good, she is more than a little lost. When her sister, Sofia, mentions an opportunity in Edinburgh - a cute little bookshop, the spare room in her house - Carmen is reluctant, she was never very good at accepting help. But, short on options, she soon finds herself pulling into the snowy city just a month before Christmas.

Amanda's old school friends can't believe it when the social-climbing queen of preen, Satan's very own PR girl, pulls off the ultimate publicity stunt in getting herself engaged to a Scottish laird. Who cares that Fraser McConnald has worn the same pair of Converse trainers for the last three years and that his castle is a pile of rubble with one calor gas heater - she'll be titled!

Who needs love? Not Quinta, who's made a good life for herself, bringing up her difficult young daughter, absorbed in her work as a violin maker. And she certainly doesn't need anybody to tell her how to live her life: She has it all sorted out, down to the last dot and comma. If it isn't on a list, it doesn't exist. When her old friend Lydia appears, jilted and angry, Quinta's orderly life is shaken and her past begins to catch up with her.

Sophie is a girl about town - living the party lifestyle with Daddy footing the bill. But when she gets embroiled in a scandalous affair, she is thrown out of home and left to fend for herself on the mean streets of London. Scraping a living as a cleaner in a photographic studio, living in a bedsit on the Old Kent Road, eating baked beans from the can - this is one spectacular fall from grace. On top of that, she is papped by photographers every time she leaves the flat, with her so-called friends laughing at her downfall.

Now, you obviously, would never, ever look up your exes on Facebook. Nooo. And even if you did, you most certainly wouldn't run off trying to track them down, risking your job, family and happiness in the process. Posy Fairweather, on the other hand...Posy is delighted when Matt proposes - on top of a mountain, in a gale, in full-on romantic mode. But a few days’ later disaster strikes: he backs out of the engagement. Crushed and humiliated, Posy starts thinking.

As Samantha Wishaw watches the love of her life marry another woman, she’s ready to give up hope of finding her happy ever after. But when a chance encounter leads Sam to find friendship in Thomas - a lonely, grumpy elderly widower living at derelict Hedgehog Hollow - her life is about to change forever. Glad to have a distraction from family feuds and match-making, Sam vows to fulfill Thomas and his wife Gwendoline's dreams of restoring Hedgehog Hollow to its former glory, and to open a hedgehog rescue centre.

As winter turns to spring, Hollie—owner of The Starfish Café—is feeling content as she settles into her new life with her loving boyfriend, Jake, and their adorable dog Pickle. But when an unwelcome visitor threatens the future of her café, Hollie must stay strong to protect her family's legacy.