A Legacy of Love

Synopsis
Charlotte was the first - wildly beautiful, wildly frustrated - who married her soldier husband solely to escape from the claustrophobic respectability of Victorian life in Richmond. When she reached the British lines in Kabul she was bewitched by the exotic world of Afghanistan and by Alexander Bewick, the scandalous adventurer who aroused an instant response in Charlotte's rebellious heart. As the city of Kabul was turned into a hell of bloodshed, Charlotte was forced to choose between her devoted husband and reckless lover. Alexandra lived in the shadow of her legendary grandmother Charlotte. Reared in a gloomy Scottish castle by a mother who resented her, she finally had to reach out and try to create a life of her own. Cara had inherited the wildness and selfishness of her great-grandmother Charlotte. Smouldering with resentment because she had to help care for her crippled mother while her friends were all joining up at the outbreak of WWII, she finally found, as the tragedies of war began to erode her life, that she also had the courage of Charlotte, a courage that was eventually to bring her happiness.

A Second Legacy

Synopsis
Behind Alexia Langley stood the legacy of three remarkable and indomitable women. There was Charlotte who had survived the Afghan war in Victorian times - Alexandra who had bravely carved a life for herself on a Cornish farm - and Cara, who was Alexia's mother and who was tough and resourceful and a terrific worker on all kinds of committees. The trouble was that Alexia, with the example of three wonderful women behind her, wasn't brave or extraordinary at all. She was nervous and shy and wasn't particularly good at anything except cooking. She was totally unsuited for the free-wheeling world of the 60s, and when Martin Angus made a bee-line for her she let herself fall wildly and gratefully in love. At last someone really liked her, in spite of what she was. It took just over a year for her to discover his betrayal - for her to realise that from now on she had to fight, for herself, her future, and the future of her child. With a legacy of her own, a crumbling castle in Scotland, she began to build a new life, shared at first only with little Carly, then at last with someone she could trust. It was Carly, her small daughter, who was to bring the legacy of love full circle - back to Afghanistan - where the story had begun so many years before...

Parson Harding’s Daughter

Synopsis
The Reverend Henry Harding, parson to the excellent living of Stoke Abbas, was a handsome and prepossessing man.  Unfortunately fate had seen fit to bless him with a family of extremely plain and unprepossessing children.  Caroline was the least offensively plain according to Lady Lennox, but the entire Lennox family also admitted that Caroline was the most insignificant person in the county of Dorset.
Caroline, already twenty-six, was bullied by her elder sister, was nervous in company, and had no prospects at all.  She had one golden memory, of an admirer when she was eighteen, but John Gates, nephew to the Lennox family, had gone to India and forgotten her.  Or so she thought.
When Lady Lennox summoned her and said that Johnny Gates had sent a proposal of marriage, Caroline at first declined.  She suspected that somehow Lady Lennox--for reasons of her own--had contrived and pressured her erstwhile suitor into proposing.  But within a few short weeks tragedy had overtaken Caroline.  The little contentment and security she had known vanished from her life and left her no option but to accept Lady Lennox's offer.

Leaves from the Valley

Synopsis
When Captain Edgar Drummond learns he is to serve his first commission in the Crimea, he decides to take his two sisters with him.  It will, after all, be only the smallest of skirmishes and, since childhood he, Blanche and Sarah have been inseparable. The stiff and talent less Edgar, however, soon finds that his beloved reason and order are ineffectual amidst the chaos of a brutal war.  Blanche, too, the beauty of the family, longing for frivolous gaiety and the company of handsome young officers, is soon reduced to frustrated boredom which finally results in her bringing disgrace on all of them. It is Sarah, brave, loyal, intelligent, who is most affected by the horrors that surround her--Sarah who decides she must play an active part in helping the victims of the war.  And it is Sarah who, silently, falls in love with the disturbingly honest man who first exposed her to the realities of the Crimean conflict--Robert Chiltern--who, loved by Sarah, is bewitched by her charming and feckless sister.

The Steps of the Sun

Synopsis
1899 - As the rumblings of dissent and racial resentment began to erupt into a savage war between Boer and Briton, so three young men found their lives drawn together. Matthew Paget, son of an archdeacon, was turbulent, rebellious, and longing for excitement. Throwing away all the privileges that could have been his, he enlisted as a trooper - only to find himself loving the beautiful, war-torn country of Africa and finally falling in love with a girl on the enemy side. Will Marriott, his cousin, was an officer who believed in England's greatness and the glory of battle. But as his comrades were maimed and killed, as he himself was wounded, and then betrayed by a one-time friend, so his values began to change. The one thing that never changed was his love for Frances, Matthew Paget's sister. Hendon Bashford was an upstart social climber, a swindler and a cheat. Half English, half Boer, he owed allegiance to no one while creating havoc in the lives of more honourable men. As the passage of war unfolded, so the lives of these three young men, and the women they loved, moved towards a tumultuous climax.

The Brass Dolphin

Synopsis
Lila Cunningham, motherless since babyhood, was almost twenty-one whe her familiar life in a small town on the Suffolk coast came abruptly to an end. It was 1938, and she learned with a shock that her endearing but feckless father faced financial disaster. With the loss of their home imminent, they had no option but to accept an offer of a house in Malta, and on that hot and exotic island, in the magnificent but crumbling Villa Zonda, Lila at last glimpsed the kind of life of which she had always dreamed.
But war was looming, and Malta became the focus of Hitler's attention while Lila became the focus of attention of three very different young men. As bombing devastated the island Lila, along with the other inhabitants, learned to live with privation and fear, and also to discover which dreams are really worth pursuing.

City of Gems

Synopsis
When she is sent to Burma to accompany her father, Maria Beresford becomes embroiled in an exotic world of political intrigue. Her friendship with the Queen and her growing closeness to Archie Tennant bring her both power and menace.