Twelve-year-old Adele is placed in a bleak, cruel children's home after a family tragedy drives her mother to madness. But when trust is betrayed Adele has no choice but to run away.... Alone and friendless, she heads for Sussex to seek out the grandmother she has never known. However the journey, without food or shelter, leaves her desperately ill. Surrounded by the beautiful Rye Marshes, Adele is nursed back to health. Can she now dream of a new life? But what will happen when her mother reappears bearing shocking family secrets?

Without a mother, Rosie is at the mercy of her father and thuggish brothers. Then one day a friend comes to the farm in the form of cockney housekeeper Heather Farley. But soon enough Heather vanishes, abandoning Rosie to her fate. Only when Thomas Farley comes to find his sister several years later does Rosie learn the terrible truth about Heather - and her family. Running away from home, she finds herself pursued by the man who brought ruin on her family. Is he out to get her, too? Or could he have some other reason for chasing her?

When 16-year-old Charlie witnesses a brutal attack on her mother by two strangers, she is shocked and terrified. But after talking to the police she realises that her father's business dealings can't be so innocent. With her father away, it is left to Charlie to protect her mother. And somehow she must find out who wants to hurt her family - and why - without losing faith in her beloved parents. Can she unravel the mysteries of the past that haunt her family? Or will the truth wreck everything she loves?

Daisy was adopted. But when her mother dies, she finds her secure existence thrown into turmoil by the discovery of a scrapbook. Inside it is information about her real mother. However, when Daisy drops everything to go in search of her roots, she uncovers a harrowing story of greed, misery and corruption. She also risks hurting her adored dad, the only true family she has left.

Baby Hope, the unfortunate proof of Lady Harvey's adultery, is smuggled out of a privileged aristocratic household to a nearby village. There, her true identity a secret, she grows up in the arms of the poor but loving Renton family.  But the day comes when Hope must pay her way. What could be more natural than being taken into service by the Harveys? However, when she sees something she should not, she is threatened and blackmailed into leaving her beloved Rentons forever.  

She witnessed a murder - and now her life is in danger. Fifteen year-old Belle, though raised in a London brothel, is an innocent. But when she witnesses one of the girls brutally strangled by a client, she is cast into a cruel, heartless world. Snatched from the streets and sold into prostitution, she is made a courtesan in New Orleans.

Charity Stratton's bleak childhood is changed forever when both her parents are killed in a fire. Separated by the authorities from her younger brothers and sister, Charity is sent out to work as a skivvy in a boys' boarding school. Her loneliness and misery are eased when she falls deeply in love with the dashing but fickle sixth-former Hugh Mainwaring, but when she discovers she is pregnant with Hugh's baby, she soon realises just how alone she really is.

When nine-year-old orphan Georgia James is unexpectedly fostered by the kindly Celia and her bank manager husband, she can hardly believe her luck. But then - on her 15th birthday - she suffers the cruellest betrayal of all at the hands of her foster father and is forced to run away, leaving everything she loves behind.

Susan walks into a busy doctor's surgery and guns down two members of staff. Then she calmly waits for the police. Beth is the lawyer assigned to defend Susan. But her client is uncooperative until both women realise that 29 years earlier, they were childhood friends. As the evidence against Susan mounts up, both she and Beth begin to talk about the secrets and the traumas that sent them down such different paths in life. Their friendship grows stronger. But for one of them, there can be no happy ending....

Sixteen-year-old Matilda is a poor Covent Garden flower girl until the day she saves the life of Tabitha, a minister's daughter. Welcomed into Tabitha's family, Matilda is offered the chance of a lifetime. She leaves behind London's slums and enters the darkest corners of New York. From there she travels across the plains to the Wild West, where San Francisco is in the grip of the gold rush. Streetwise and strong-willed, Matilda forges a new life for herself and Tabitha among pioneers like Captain James Russell - a man to whom she is deeply attracted. Yet a civil war will soon rip apart this new nation.

When their father tragically kills their mother, Dulcie and her sister are sent to an orphanage. Told that a 'better life' awaits them in another country, they are shipped off to Australia. But the promises made to the sisters turn out to be lies. And it seems to Dulcie that everyone who ever said 'trust me' somehow betrayed that trust. So when she meets Ross, another orphanage survivor, and finds he is a kindred spirit, hope swells in her heart. But can she ever get over the past betrayals and learn to trust again? And can she fight not only for herself but also for her sister?

In 1786 a fisherman's daughter from Cornwall called Mary Broad was sentenced to be hanged for theft. But her sentence was commuted, and she was transported to Australia, one of the first convicts to arrive there. How Mary escaped the harsh existence of the colony and found true love, and how she was captured and taken back to London in chains, only to be released after a trial where she was defended by no less than James Boswell, is one of the most gripping and moving stories of human endeavour (based on an amazing true story) you will ever listen to.

Fifteen-year-old Beth's dreams are shattered when she, her brother, Sam, and her baby sister, Molly, are orphaned. Sam believes that only in America can they make their fortunes, so, reluctantly leaving Molly with adoptive parents, brother and sister embark on the greatest adventure of their lives.

Scotland, 1995. On the hills of Cornton Vale Prison. She was convicted of killing her best friend.... Laura Brannigan has been put away for murder. She insists that she didn't kill Jackie. But her search for true justice seems futile. Then she receives a letter that takes her back to her youth and the memory of an old love, Stuart....

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Without a Trace. A compelling story of courage, friendship and love by international number-one best-selling author Lesley Pearse, read by Emma Powell. Coronation Day, 1953. In the Somerset village of Sawbridge, young shopkeeper Molly Heywood slips away from the celebrations to her friend's cottage and makes a shocking discovery: Cassie is dead, and her six-year-old daughter, Petal, has vanished without a trace.