An elderly artist and her six-year-old grand-daughter are away on a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. As the two learn to adjust to each other's fears, whims and yearnings, a fierce yet understated love emerges - one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the very island itself.
Two little girls are taken by their mother to Morocco on a 1960s pilgrimage of self-discovery. For Mum, it is not just an escape from the grinding conventions of English life but a quest for personal fulfilment; her children, however, seek something more solid and stable amidst the shifting desert sands.
Nine-year-old Tess has never seen anything like The Wild. An old bakery, converted into a home, it has a fireplace big enough to sit in, a garden with a badminton net and another one for vegetables. And then there's William, its owner. Single father of three, he cooks homemade ravioli, cuts trees down with a chainsaw and plays the guitar.
On a holiday with her father, Lara meets the Willoughby family, rife with illicit alliances and vendettas. The more embroiled Lara becomes with them, and with the beautiful Kip, the more consumed she is with doubt, curiosity and dread. And so begins her journey into self discovery and across the fine line between childhood and what lies beyond.
Summer, 1914. It is Emanuel's twenty-first birthday, and eleven-year-old Eva and her sisters are helping transform Gaglow for a glorious party. But their brother's arrival is overshadowed by the talk of war that comes with him from Hamburg, and when he is wrenched from the family to serve his country, Eva knows that nothing will be the same again.
Lara's father invites her to accompany him on a holiday to Italy. There, Lara is taken for dinner at the Willoughbys, and finds herself irresistibly drawn to the only son of the family - A boy with five older sisters, who seems, unbelievably, to be interested in her too. This book is written by the author of Hideous Kinky .
Sixteen-year-old Lisa has high hopes for her first year in London. But she is squeezed into a flat with her bohemian mother and a little brother obsessed with foxes. Lisa trails through the city, dabbling with drugs and romance, and refusing to lose faith in her belief that something fantastic will happen to mark the rest of her life.
After Klaus Lehmann's death in the village of Steerborough, a young woman, Lily, arrives to research his life and work. Poring over Klaus' letters to his wife Elsa, Lily pieces together the story of their lives. And alone in her rented cottage by the sea, she begins to sense an absence in her own life that may not be filled by simply going home.