Although this story's particular events could not have happened anywhere except in British-India, everyone will feel at home in its sunny atmosphere. The three girls who lived these adventures were completely different, but they formed a close-knit trio and shared all of each other's joys and problems. Poopy possessed a face that seemed blank to everyone but her two friends, who read it with ease.

Paul took the paper and read the paragraph indicated, and as he read, the kitchen seemed to perform a slow, revolving movement and come to rest with a grinding jar. It looked like a very nice announcement. The engagement is announced between Sir Paul Saxon, Bt., elder son of the late Sir Bartholomew Saxon, Bt. and of Lady Saxon, of 16 Lowndes Crescent, S.W. 1 and Helga, only daughter of Madame de Brulais, of 89 Selcourt Street, S.W. 3.

Lucille Abbey runs her London secretarial agency with utmost efficiency. When, therefore, a certain Professor Hallam rejects three girls sent by her to apply for the post of his secretary and they each pronounce him "impossible", Lucille herself sets out to interview the Professor at his home in Hampshire. He is, she finds, eccentric—even impossible; but he represents a challenge and, what is more, an excuse to delay what promises to be a trying holiday in Paris. She stays on to tame and to organize him—a less formidable task than she had imagined; in fact, she grows fond of him.

Kate Verney left her home in London at Christmas time to travel to Buenos Aires to meet her first grandchild! On the voyage she makes friends with Lindy and Rex Barron, two young adults who lost their mother and are on their way to live with their father in Lisbon. Murder and mystery is in the air when William Barron disappears and doesn't show up to meet his children when the ship arrives in Lisbon. Kate realises that she can't leave Lindy and Rex with no one to turn to, so she chooses to stay and stumbles upon a murder plot.

Mrs. Belchamber was not invited but Mrs. Belchamber came to stay. The changes she introduced into Scotty’s topsy-turvy Kentish farmhouse were past belief. But though Christopher could not help feeling some concern that he had landed on his friend a woman of character as well as three lively French children, the Belchamber influence on his own friendship with Cressida was admittedly an almost unmixed blessing.

The memory of her late husband's slow and painful death is fresh in Anita Stratton's mind when she finds herself confronted with the high-voltage glare of national publicity when her first novel rockets into the best-seller lists. The furor she arouses leaves her publishers, the staid and respectable firm of Beetham Brothers, as bewildered as she herself is.

David Eliot’s future seemed secure with his engagement to Marly Tranter, the daughter of the incredibly rich and powerful Sir Bertram Tranter. As an architect, David seemed to fit right in with the family, even if it included a golden collar. But the mission on which Sir Bertram sent David and Marly to Portugal created havoc in everyone’s plans, including the preposterous Mr. Easter, the eccentric Lady Pearling, and Teresa, Senhora Silva’s delightful and beautiful niece. What David finds out when he gets there changes his perspective on his life and future.  

This is the diary of an English girl who falls in love with an eligible young Portuguese, Afonso. The bride recounts, vividly and hilariously, her and her mother's plans for an English country wedding, how they dealt with Uncle George (The Head of the Family), and their success in making sure that on her wedding day the church was filled with music and flowers (both officially banned due to the “mixed” marriage of a Catholic bridegroom and a Church of England bride). She subsequently finds herself living on a horse-rearing estate in a rural part of Portugal, coping with a truculent cook and a primitive kitchen....

On holiday in Portugal to take their daughter's mind off a troubled love affair, the Channing family is befriended by the hospitable Baronesa Narvao - but they soon find her hospitality something of an embarrassment. 

Jessica de Vrais was 22, the only child of an elderly and irritable widower. Though they thought alike on almost all matters, they agreed on none; least of all did they see eye to eye on the subject of men. Jessica, pretty and popular, invited them to come and stay; Mr. de Vrais, irritable and suspicious, invited them to go away and stay away. Fortune-hunters all, he said furiously to his daughter. One and all, they were after her money - his money. One look, he shouted, and he could smell them a mile off. Hangers-on. Yahoos. Parasites.

 For Anabelle Baird, the fortnight’s holiday with her fiancé, Philip Ancell, in Lisbon has not been a happy one. At the Lisbon airport she has a surprise encounter with Angus Pemberton, whom she had last seen seven years ago when he left Steyne under a cloud and went to Brazil. Anabelle’s reunion with Angus and her strange meeting with Luis, a small Portuguese boy, are but portents of her involvement in a mystery which pursues her to Steyne and finds its roots there in the home of Angus’ eccentric old grandmother Lady Evelyn Pemberton.

High Ambo, in England, is the setting. It is winter, and Caroline West - a very human, placid, and unexcitable person - has gone there to escape her late husband's relatives. Like so many good-hearted people, she is immediately put upon. Caroline's sister Iris comes first, full of impulse and determination to be a reporter - an ambition abruptly deflected by a handsome young schoolmaster - an authority on birds. Then comes Robert, with his sweet, ingenuous fiancée Polly, and thus making the three-ring circus of a genuine Cadell household.

Julian was in love with Alexandra, Alexandra was in love with Julian. She had no doubts about that, and being engaged to Julian was delightful. Yet, somehow, as a husband, she felt he might prove less perfect - until she had taught him the little lesson he needed. Julian learnt it in Scotland, Yorkshire, Devon, London. His mystified family looked on.

Narrated by the great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Cadell! At Edmund Brooke's insistence, his 10-year-old daughter, Vitorina, leaves the closed world of her old and strait-laced great-aunts and their Portuguese mansion - complete with chapel - and journeys to a boarding school in England. Edmund readily accepts the offer of a golfing acquaintance to act as chaperone for Tory. Tory is called upon to let down her facade of meekness and to reveal her real nature: she is shrewd, imaginative and - as the situation calls for - brave.

The friendly air describes the atmosphere in warm, sunny Portugal where young, beautiful Emma Challis finds herself as the temporary companion to Lady Grantly who has just bought a home there. She took on the task at the request of her fiancé, Gerald Delmont - brilliant, sophisticated and with a promising legal career ahead. A perfect husband for Emma - but would he be? Enter handsome local lawyer Robert Weybridge, a mysterious young woman with five small children who take up residence in a packing crate, and you have the ingredients for one of Elizabeth Cadell’s finest romances.