In 18th-century London, porcelain is the most seductive of commodities; fortunes are made and lost upon it. Kings do battle with knights and knaves for possession of the finest pieces and the secrets of their manufacture. For Genevieve Planché, an English-born descendant of Huguenot refugees, porcelain holds far less allure; she wants to be an artist, a painter of international repute, but nobody takes the idea of a female artist seriously in London. If only she could reach Venice.

Victoria Langley needs to find a refuge when her husband leaves her. She finds it, in the shape of Seafall Cottage on a Cornwall clifftop. The unkempt cottage in the village of Tregollan is a perfect place to recharge - particularly when she finds a fascinating diary from 1905. Victoria determines to solve the secrets the diary contains, but locals blank her when she asks about its author, Tilly Asprey. In walks a handsome lawyer with a missing piece of the puzzle. Now Victoria knows that Tilly's story is just like hers.

In the little village of Whistling, with its butterscotch cottages and rolling green hills, snow is beginning to fall. Christmas is coming, and Emma Halloway is on her way home. When twenty-eight-year-old food writer Emma Halloway gets dumped then knocked off her bike, she’s broken in more ways than one, and returns to her family’s cosy cottage in the Yorkshire Dales. Emma hasn’t been back in some time, running from her crazy relatives and her childhood sweetheart, Jack Allen.

Marrakesh, 1893: His military career in disgrace, Harry Delhaze turns to a life of drink and gambling. But then he’s offered a way out–a small fortune to help the Sultan of Morocco quell a rebel uprising. It sounds like easy money. Instead, Harry is forced to battle the wild bandit armies of ruthless prophet-warlord, Bou Hamra, through the snows of the Atlas Mountains and the baking deserts of the Sahara. And he finds himself in the fight of his life.

Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer’s affinity for books extends beyond the intoxicating scent of old paper, ink, and leather. She can feel the echoes of the books’ previous owners—an emotional fingerprint only she can read. When Ashlyn discovers a pair of beautifully bound volumes that appear to have never been published, her gift quickly becomes an obsession. Not only is each inscribed with a startling incrimination, but the authors, Hemi and Belle, tell conflicting sides of a tragic romance.