Every summer, Jessie and Emma leave their suburban home in the Central Valley of California and fly north to Baymont. Nestled among Mendocino's golden hills, with ponies to love and endless acres to explore, Baymont should be a child's paradise. But Baymont belongs to Laurel, the girls' birth mother, whose heedless parenting and tainted judgement cast a long shadow over the sisters' summers - and their lives. Caught in a web of allegiances, the girls learn again and again that every loyalty has its price, and that even forgiveness can take unexpected turns.

Freddy left her childhood home in Newhaven 22 years ago and swore never to return. But now her parents are dead and she's back in her hometown to help her brothers manage the family fishmonger. Nothing here has changed: the stink of fish coming up from the marshes; the shopping trolleys half-buried by muddy tides; the neighbours sniffing for a new piece of gossip. It's not what Freddy would have chosen, but at least while she's here she'll get to see her childhood best friends, Toni and Pauline. At school, the three of them were inseparable. 

Aspiring actress Cordelia Beaumont is fed up of spending summer in the city. So, when the opportunity presents itself, she jumps straight on a train to pay a visit to Pencradoc - the beautiful Cornish estate where her friend Merryn works. But far from the relaxing break Cordy imagined, she soon finds herself immersed in the glamorous yet mysterious world of Victorian theatre sensation Lily Valentine. 

Lillian Alexander has never understood why her twin sister hates her so much. Layla’s animosity stems from childhood, from their mother’s death 27 years ago. But Lillian remembers nothing about that day. Why, if her mother’s death was an accident, does Lillian harbor guilt, as though she were somehow to blame?

Joe Arneson's ordinary life is upended by troubling dreams of himself as a different man in another place and time. It isn't until he visits his estranged grandmother, Pearl, in her Wisconsin hometown that a startling connection emerges. Drawn into his family's past, Joe discovers secrets weighing on the old woman's soul: the tragic death of her sister Alice a half century ago and its ripple effect on all who loved her. 

When Jem writes to her ex, Ben, it’s to explain everything. All the secrets she kept from him - from the little lies she’d sometimes tell about how new those shoes really were, or how many glasses of wine she’d had that evening...right up to The Big Thing that happened on the night that changed everything. But she never expects he will actually see what she’s written. She is just writing because she thinks it will help to get the words out. Later, she resolves, she’ll burn the letter, and then the past will be in the past for good. Because Jem is doing fine now.

In the backyard of a Southern California home, a group of family, friends, and strangers come together to celebrate the wedding of two people in love, but each brings with them conflicts they can’t leave behind. The bride’s brother Ian brings upheaval as he shakes off responsibility. Kristy, the photographer, is overwhelmed by her anxiety. The whole foundation of Leah’s life has been destroyed, distracting her from her critical job as wedding coordinator. Amber, the maid of honor, fights to keep a smile on her face as her loneliness crushes her.

When Thea sees her old family home is up for sale - a beautiful old rectory in the small town where she and her childhood sweetheart, now husband, Drew, grew up - she knows she has to have it. Her parents moved her away suddenly when she was 11, but her childhood there was filled with happy memories. Drew seems less sure, but Thea is certain it’s the perfect place to raise their two children. But as the last boxes are unpacked, Thea can’t seem to settle. She thought the move would bring her family closer together, but Drew is getting more distant by the day. 

Spend time in the funny, oddball village of Arnold Falls, where larger-than-life characters deal with the smallest of problems. Somehow, it all comes out right in the end. Given the choice of go big or go home, nine times out of 10 the townspeople of Arnold Falls will go home, get back into their house slippers, and forget about the whole thing, whatever the whole thing was this time. Tempests great and small (mostly small) are always brewing in this tiny, upstate hamlet where half of the residents are fighting to preserve Arnold Falls as it was in its red-light-district heyday.

When Joel Shields dies, Robin Grover's only goal is to get her four best friends back to Five Island Cove to celebrate the life of Kristen's husband. She alone has stayed in the cove while everyone else couldn't wait to get away. Alice Keller comes instantly, because her mansion in the Hamptons and her husband's infidelity is smothering her. Not only that, but Kristen has always been like a mother to her, and she wants to support her.

Jessica Donnelly's life is beginning to unravel. When the attorney turned stay-at-home mom tentatively volunteers to represent Amina Hamid, a woman seeking asylum, Jessica must learn an unfamiliar area of the law. Soon, rising opposition to Muslim immigration and unexpected prejudices put her relationships on shaky ground. Amina fled Syria with little more than memories that now fight against the images splashed on the news. Seeking a secure future and freedom from guilt and grief, she must learn to trust others amidst the reality of fear and hate.

For the past 29 years, Kay Bright’s days have had a familiar rhythm: she works in her husband’s stationery shop hoping to finally sell the legendary gold pen, cooks for her family, tries to remember to practice yoga, and every other month she writes to her best friend, Ursula. Kay could set her calendar by their letters: her heart lifts when the blue airmail envelope, addressed in Ursula’s slanting handwriting, falls gently onto the mat. But now Ursula has stopped writing and everything is a little bit worse. Ursula is the only one who knows Kay’s deepest secret....

Celia Bernhart, on the cusp of turning 39, thinks her life is all planned out. She has a successful career selling pharmaceuticals. She's about to marry her longtime fiance, a doctor. Then a package unexpectedly shows up at her door - the address is correct but it was mailed nearly 40 years earlier, to another woman, whose whereabouts are now a mystery. Inside is a curious old cookbook, along with a sealed note from a daughter to her mother. Celia decides to deliver the package to its rightful recipient.

"I am always with you. I will always be here." This was the promise Ella’s mother betrayed thirty years ago when she walked into the sea, leaving her five-year-old daughter alone in the world. Ella’s been angry ever since, building up a wall to protect herself. But that all changes the day she opens a newspaper and finds those ten little words printed in a classified ad. Ella refuses to believe her mother could still be alive - that would mean she did want to live, just not with her daughter. So she throws herself into finding out exactly what happened all those years ago.

It’s the 1960s, and Jennifer Howells is a young woman with the world at her feet, just on the cusp of leaving her Welsh village for an exciting life in the city. Then the contents of an inconspicuous brown envelope turn Jennifer’s world upside down. But Jennifer’s experience with the excesses of '60s culture leaves her no closer to her true identity. She soon realises she’ll have to travel further - first to Cardiff, then across the ocean to Sicily - if she wants to find out who she really is....