When police knock on Alice Donaldson’s door at 4am, she knows the news won’t be good. There’s been an accident involving her ex-husband, Grant, and as his existing next of kin, they need her help. Grant is missing up on the North York moors, but the Grant Alice knew could barely be persuaded out on a walk around the block. What on earth possessed him to go on a hike in the middle of the night? Alice soon finds herself working with Grant’s girlfriend Jenna and Jenna’s gorgeous ‘Lord of the family Manor’ brother Max, to find out what has happened.

London City Vet, Phoebe Dashwood, finds her partner Hugh and their boss in a passionate clinch beneath the mistletoe at their works Christmas party. Heartbroken, she bolts to the New Forest, her childhood home to regroup and soul search. Being home gives Phoebe the chance to reconnect with friends and family and especially with her fiercely independent gran, widower Maggie Crowther, owner of Puddleduck Farm, and makeshift animal shelter New Forest Neddies. Deciding not to return to London, Phoebe hunts for work locally, hoping she can also help Maggie.

Fifty years ago, newlywed Stella is relishing making the little cottage a happy home. But for all the lovingly handmade curtains and the hot dinners ready on the table for her husband, Stella’s dreams of married life jar painfully with the truth. Fifty years later, the cottage is a new beginning for Tamzin. Determined to get away from her previous life, she makes the move to the wild and vast Yorkshire countryside. When Tamzin finds a sepia photo of a woman, Stella, standing in the cottage’s garden, there’s a sadness in her eyes that Tamzin recognises.

From the attic of Driftwood House, there are stunning views of the deep green sea and sapphire sky. But Rosie can’t tear her eyes away from the faded photograph in her hands, and the words written on the back that will change everything.... Back in the tiny seaside village of Heaven’s Cove after the death of her mother, all Rosie Merchant wants is to hide her tears, rent out her childhood home and get back to her ‘real’ life, away from the gossiping villagers and wild Devon weather she escaped from years ago.

A brilliant counsellor at work in York, she is however floundering in her own life. Her romantic track record is woeful, her finances are in a pickle, and she’s back in a house-share after splitting up with her useless ex. But one thing Ruby is brilliant at is helping other people find a way through their problems, and she excels at the job she loves, doing just that.

Winter Gregory and her twin sister, Daisy, live oceans apart, but they still have the 'twin thing' going on. Daisy is Winter's port in the storm, the first person she calls when things go wrong. And things are wrong. Winter has travelled to a remote Yorkshire village to write her new book and to escape her ex-boyfriend, Dan Bekener. But Dan can't stay away and remains intent on driving the sisters apart - because Dan knows something about Daisy....

When Brid Harcus is sent to the Orkney Islands, in the far reaches of Scotland, she has high hopes for her trip being short, straightforward and lucrative. Her mother has inherited a cottage from her Great Aunt Jennet which has been unlived in and unloved for decades, and the time has come to make it habitable and saleable. Easy, right? But Midness Cottage has other ideas. For one thing it’s rather more ‘fixer upper’ than Country Living. And Brid definitely hadn’t planned for the strongly held local belief that the cottage is meant to be the home of the Orkney Witch.

Leaving London and her ex-husband, Luc, behind, Katie and her 14-year-old daughter, Poppy, move into their very own, very ramshackle cottage near the village of Christmas Steepleton on the Dorset coast. Harvest Cottage has been unloved for many years, so the job of bringing it back to life is a slow and expensive one. So, with funds running low, Katie jumps at the chance when a film company asks to use the cottage as a location. But even as things are looking up, as harvest time passes and autumn chill starts to bite, the prospect of a cold winter in the country is daunting.

When Seren’s brother Andrew signs her up to Yorkshire Dating, only for them to recommend that she ‘gets a life’ before they find her a match, Seren has to admit that they may have a point. She loves her job cooking at an elder day centre and her little flat, but it’s fair to say her life is a little short of hobbies and friends. Since she was young Seren has felt safer close to home, but now she’s a thirty-something divorcee, it’s time for a change. Change arrives in the shape of alarmingly clever collie Kez, who Seren offers to take in ‘temporarily’, and kind but mysterious new colleague Ned.

Jemima Hutton is determined to build a successful new life and keep her past a dark secret. Trouble is, her jewellery business looks set to fail - until enigmatic Ben Davies offers to stock her handmade belt buckles in his guitar shop and things start looking up, on all fronts. But Ben has secrets too. When Jemima finds out he used to be the front man of hugely successful Indie rock band Willow Down, she wants to know more. Why did he desert the band on their US tour? Why is he now a semi-recluse?

Mattie Arden has just escaped from a toxic relationship, so when she receives a letter informing her that she has inherited a house from her great-aunt Millie a few days before Christmas, it’s a welcome distraction. Except it comes with a strange proviso: if Mattie wants the house, she must fulfil Millie’s last wish and scatter her ashes over 'the boys of Christmas'. In the company of her best friend, Toby, Mattie sets out for the seaside village of Christmas Steepleton in the hope of finding out the meaning of her aunt’s bizarre request.

When Leah and her husband moved to France, it was with the dream of becoming self-sufficient. But in truth, it’s not the ‘good life’ she’d imagined, as three hours of digging barely yield a single straggly carrot. Worse, her teenage daughter is acting up, and her husband seems to find every strange excuse under the hot French sun to disappear. So when her friend entreats her to join the new book club she’s forming, Leah decides it’s something she will do for herself.

Working at a tiny village school in rural Yorkshire has its own unique set of challenges - but when teachers Lydia Knight and Jake Immingham are tasked with getting the children to put on a Christmas play for the local elderly people’s home, they know they’re in for a tricky term! But in between choreographing sugar plum dance routines, reindeer costume malfunctions and trying to contain Rory Scott’s wannabe rap star aspirations, Lydia realises that, even as a teacher, she isn’t past being taught a couple of things - and one of those things is a much-needed lesson in Christmas spirit.

Abbey Carter should be feeling on top of the world. She has the home of her dreams - a picturesque cottage just walking distance from her beloved Primrose Woods. She has a job she adores, great friends and most exciting of all - a wedding dress hanging in her wardrobe ready to be worn. So why does she feel so lonely?

Living in a bustling farmhouse with her mum, aunt and uncles, cousin and too many dogs to count, surrounded by the breath-taking Cotswolds countryside, she knows she is privileged and protected. But all families have secrets, and the Travers family are no exception. Their farmhouse sits in the grounds of the Juniper Meadows estate, passed down through the generations and now being made to pay its own way with a myriad of businesses and projects.