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.

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.

"A week at Trysting had its trials", Leigh thought. A round of odd jobs with Aunt Elvira, bad poetry with Aunt Rosande, and bouts of hay fever with Aunt Dolly were not his idea of a restful holiday. Nor did his cousin Raymond, who seemed sunk in gloom, help matters. Or a mystery Leigh could not fathom about someone burning down the old house and the disappearance of the family silver. But meanwhile there was a Hampshire summer, and there was Auriol. Auriol, Leigh thought, was lovely - but he didn’t want to live on eggs.

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.

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.

Natalie Rome, timid and retiring, discovers that a new life at forty is not, after all, as difficult of achievement as she had feared. With new relations and a new home, she finds security and happiness. She also finds a stepdaughter as timid as herself and a stepson of exceptional charm; a mother-in-law in garden boots and ancient, formal hats who talks loudly and a great deal; and a father-in-law who seldom talks at all. Into this assembly comes Natalie’s own daughter Helen; young, beautiful, successful and supremely confident.

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.

Three girls decide to share a flat in Chelsea: Denny, the sensible daughter of a famous actress; Chess, the long, lean, temperamental daughter of an Earl; Marya, the beautiful daughter of an Argentinian millionaire. The light-hearted story of their life together and of the men they meet is suddenly interrupted by the death of Mr. Flower, their meek little landlord.

Madame Landini’s memoirs promised to be sensational. Rodney, who had captured them for his publishing house, and Oliver, his literary agent friend who would handle the business side of the book, could congratulate themselves on a brilliant coup. But having covered her childhood as a Russian princess, her years of exile in Paris, and the discovery of her phenomenal voice, the prima donna reached her first husband’s death — "man overboard" — and declared she would write no more. Rodney suspected there was more to this than a display of temperament.

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.