Ricky Bird loves making up stories for her brother Ollie almost as much as she loves him. The imaginary worlds she creates are wild and whimsical places full of unlimited possibilities. Real life is another story. Ricky’s father has abandoned them and the family has moved to a bleak new neighborhood. Worse still, her mother’s new boyfriend, Dan, has come with the furniture. But Ricky Bird is a force to be reckoned with. As the mastermind of so many outlandish adventures, her imagination is her best weapon. 

As a hospice nurse, Zara Mitchell has already seen more death than most people will experience in a lifetime. So when her older sister asks her to help care for their ailing grandmother, Zara agrees - despite strained family relationships. Though pale and tired, Nonna has lost none of her sharp mind. She’s fixated on finding something long forgotten, and she immediately puts Zara to work cleaning out the attic. Amid the tedium of sifting through knickknacks and heirlooms, Zara also reconnects with a man she’s attracted to but whose complicated past makes romance seem impossible.

When their father dies unexpectedly, siblings Max, Ellie and Nathan can’t even contemplate emptying his house—not least because he spent his last decade curating what feels like a museum to his polished public image. So it is Max’s wife, Caroline, who finds the suitcase under a bed… A suitcase stuffed full of an awful lot of cash. The source of the money is a mystery to them all, and each has a strong opinion about what to do with it. 

Eliya thinks that she’s finally found true love and passion with her charismatic and demanding husband, an aspiring novelist—until he ends their relationship in a Paris café, spurring her suicide attempt. Seeking to heal herself, Eliya is compelled to piece together the jagged shards of her life and history. Eliya’s heart-wrenching journey leads her to a profound and unexpected love, renewed family ties, and a reconciliation with her orphaned mother, Lily. 

Marnie MacGraw and Patrick Delaney have been in love for a few years now, enough to realize that they are imperfectly perfect together. Still, there are some things that maybe need a little attention. Marnie’s ebullient; he’s brooding. She thrives on change; he prefers stability. She sees marriage and parenthood in their future, but he can’t see beyond the shadow of an earlier tragedy. Then an eight-year-old surprise from Patrick’s past shows up on their doorstep, cartwheeling into their lives and spinning things in all directions. 

I know I’m lucky. I have a stunning Cheltenham apartment and a charming weekend cottage in Devon. Chris, my partner, is kind and supportive. He loves me in spite of my scars—the result of a childhood incident I don’t talk about. Most of all, I love my job, helping young women with eating disorders. But I can’t help everyone, as I tell Kyle Stannard. Kyle was once a top male model—before he was left horrifically scarred in a random attack. Kyle thinks we’re the same, but I can’t help him with his problems. It’s not my field. Then creepy things start to happen.

When Englishwoman Frances McDonald sets up home in a remote South African hamlet, she is regarded with suspicion by the community. Confined by a marriage of convenience, she seeks an outlet by learning the local language and exhibiting her paintings. Soon war threatens to divide not only the country but the town itself and scupper Frances' hard-won acceptance. 

Just turned eighteen, Romany is on the cusp of taking her first steps into adulthood when tragedy strikes, and she finds herself suddenly alone without her mother, Angie, the only parent she has ever known. In her final letter, Angie has charged her four closest friends with guiding Romany through her last year of school—but is there an ulterior motive to her unusual dying wish? Each of the four guardians possesses an outlook on life that Angie wants to give her daughter as a legacy. 

After an eight-hundred-year slumber, the volcanoes in Iceland’s most populated region are showing signs of life. Earthquakes dominate the headlines. Echoes of the devastating eruptions in the past stir unease in the people. Volcanologist Anna Arnardóttir has spent her entire life studying the volcanic powers under the earth’s crust, but even she cannot fathom the catastrophe at hand.

On a hot July morning on Sweden's idyllic vacation island of Sandhamn, a man takes his dog for a walk and makes a gruesome discovery: a body, tangled in fishing net, has washed ashore. Police detective Thomas Andreasson is the first to arrive on the scene. Before long, he has identified the deceased as Krister Berggren, a bachelor from the mainland who has been missing for months. All signs point to an accident - until another brutalized corpse is found at the local bed-and-breakfast.