Anna Vere has escaped to the Cotswolds for Christmas to try to heal from her broken engagement and, far worse, her broken dreams. When her reserved room at a bed-and-breakfast is flooded, she takes up the offer of camping out in Willoughby Close, the converted stables of the nearby manor house...and is taken under the wing of sexy local carpenter Colin Heath. What starts out as merely helping a neighbor in need turns into far more as Colin and Anna share a surprisingly intense and emotional connection, weaving their own Christmas magic as they spend the holiday together. 

When Simon Blacklock, a handsome, whimsical stranger, breezes into her shop and buys a cupcake and then returns the next day and the day after, Olivia begins to dream. Can romance blossom amid the sugar and flour? And after a lifetime of living on the sidelines, is she brave enough to star in her own story? 

When Sophie Weiss boards the SS St Louis, she has no reason to stay in Germany. The Nazis have taken everything from her, and her only hope is escape. But when she meets fellow Jewish refugees Rosa, Hannah and Rachel on board, the friendship they form gives Sophie hope that there can be happiness in her future, after all.

Persephone is the youngest Penryn, and she’s always felt like an afterthought. As her siblings ventured out one by one, she was left behind, learning to rely on herself. Now that they’ve all returned and are on a mission to save their home, she’s reluctantly falling in with their plans and keeping her distance, especially when an Oxford-educated intern arrives wanting to learn how to save one’s ancestral home. 

The Penryn family have always been eccentric—living in a dilapidated castle in the wilds of Cumbria with an orchid-mad father and a classicist mother who likes to re-enact Greek myths, who wouldn’t be? Well-heeled Londoner Althea Penryn doesn’t expect a divorce and job hunt over the Christmas holidays, but her husband claims he’s done and the prenup is solid. She packs up her reluctant teenage children and heads home to Casterglass Castle to confront the ghosts of her past—including the real one her mother claims lives in the old guard tower.

Anna Holley, the third of four sisters, has always felt a little bit forgotten. A family tragedy when she was a child had her retreating deep into shyness, and social anxiety kept her on the fringes of the cozy chaos of the busy vicarage. After several years away from home, Anna returns for Christmas, and an important announcement from her father. As much as she once loved the village, coming back is hard and puts Anna’s social capabilities to the test. Avoiding her sisters’ bossy questions, she heads out to the local pub one night, and meets a handsome stranger nursing a pint. 

1904: Ellen Copley is still a child when she leaves behind the sooty rail yards of Glasgow and crosses the Atlantic Ocean with a heart full of dreams. Yet within weeks of their arrival in America, her father has disappeared - leaving Ellen with resentful relatives, feeling alone and scared for her future. But then her kind Aunt Rose invites Ellen to stay with her large family in their rambling house on beautiful Amherst Island, which nestles like a jewel in the blue waters of Lake Ontario.

When the call finally comes, my life as I know it is over—my job as a teacher, my marriage, my family are all gone. In a heartbeat, I’ve lost everything that ever mattered to me. All because of one secret and what someone thinks she saw....

Libby Trent has worked hard to make a good life for herself. She has a happy, messy home in Virginia, full of family and laughter. And a job she’s enormously proud of at a charity helping the disadvantaged, that suits her strong sense of what’s right and wrong. But everything changes the day she’s contacted by a government official asking questions about a man named Hans Brenner, a Nazi who escaped Germany after the Second World War. A war criminal guilty of the most heinous deeds. And the man they suspect is Libby’s own father.

When Ellie and her family move to a tiny village in rural Wales, it’s meant to be a new beginning for all of them. They have decided to take over her husband’s family inn, leaving behind their old life and troubles in America.

Berlin, 1936: From her beautiful new home Liesel Scholz barely notices the changes to the city around her. Her life is one of privilege and safety thanks to her father’s job working for the new government. But soon a chance encounter with Rosa, the daughter of their Jewish housekeeper, leaves Liesel in no doubt that something isn’t right. Frankfurt, 1946: An idealistic American captain, Sam Houghton, arrives in Germany to interrogate prominent Nazis on trial and to help rebuild a battered country. He hires an enigmatic and damaged woman named Anna as his interpreter.

Nazi-occupied Vienna, 1940. As bombs fall over Europe, Hannah Stern is a 27-year-old nurse who is just trying to survive. When she takes a position at Vienna’s esteemed psychiatric hospital, Am Steinhof, she thinks it will take her away from the danger. Her estranged half-brother has arranged the job for her on the condition that she must take his son, Willi, there too. He insists it’s a place where Willi will be safe. And Hannah soon forms a close bond with the sweet, fragile child in her care.

I never expected to have to uproot my family to go live in my parents’ isolated cottage on Lost Lake. It’s twenty miles to the nearest town, an insignificant speck in endless pine forests. Nobody’s lived here for a decade. Now, I pick up a rusty pail from its nest of autumn leaves and turn to my daughter. Suddenly, I recall how I used to help my own mother pick wild strawberries up here as a little girl. Maybe, this isn’t a punishment. Maybe this place will be the making of our family.

1938, Salzburg. Johanna, Birgit, and Lotte Eder have always lived quiet lives, working in their father’s clockmaking shop and helping their mother in the house. But like many other Austrians, they find it impossible to ignore the changes in the world around them. At first Johanna finds it hard to believe the Nazis pose a real threat. But then her father hires Franz to help in his shop. He’s kind and soulful, with dark eyes that twinkle with intelligence. But he’s Jewish, and as Johanna falls for him, she realizes that loving him puts them all in danger.

Single mother Beth loves her seven-year-old son Dylan with all her heart. He’s her world. But life with Dylan isn’t easy — and his emotional issues push Beth to her very limit. When a misunderstanding leads Dylan to be taken into foster care, she is determined to do whatever she can to get him back. Mother of two, Ally has always dreamed of fostering — it feels like her chance to give back when she has been so lucky in life. But when Dylan joins their family, Ally finds herself struggling to balance his needs with those of her own children and husband.