French Indochina, 1945: Arielle, the daughter of a French father and Vietnamese mother, is working for the colonial government. Because of her native blood, she’s spared imprisonment when the Japanese storm Hanoi. Forced to work for the enemy, Arielle is contacted by a Viet Minh agent, who threatens to expose her dark secrets from 10 years before if she doesn’t help his cause. As Arielle is drawn deeper into the rebels’ dangerous world, will she ever escape the torment of her past? Or will she find love in the most unexpected of places?

In this evocative tale of life in India between the wars, friendships will be tested and loyalties torn. But can love win the day?

When Elizabeth Morton's father asks her to travel to the other side of the world to marry a man she's never met, she is stunned. It's 1920 and a woman has rights. But her choices are removed when she is raped by her brother-in-law and thrown out of her own home by her sister.

When Lily is called to a lawyer’s office in London, she has no idea that her life is about to change forever. There, she is told that her grandmother was born at Hope House, a home for unmarried mothers, and is given a box containing the only clues to her true heritage. Peeling back the delicate layers of paper she finds an Italian recipe and a theatre program.

When Gabby’s husband accepts a transfer to Pakistan, she discovers a new world of heat and colour, of exotic bazaars and trips to the breathtaking Kashmiri mountains. It's an escape she didn’t know she was looking for. But then a shocking letter from her sister reveals a devastating secret. Gabby is transported back to her childhood home on the Cornish coast, and as memories unravel, so too does her new life in Karachi. Will Gabby find the courage to face the dark secrets and embrace a different future?

In mid-nineteenth-century Ireland, charming Kathleen and dashing Michael harbor secrets and dreams. Imagining a life beyond the kitchen and fields of the wealthy family they both work for, they plot to leave their homeland, marry, and raise the child Kathleen is secretly carrying. The luck of the Irish, however, is not on their side. Soon, they find themselves swept up in circumstances they never could have fathomed. Kathleen is forced to marry against her will and immigrate to New Zealand.

Maggie Bailey has not had an easy childhood. Her father, Michael, always too easy with his fists after spending the family’s rent money down the pub. Just sixteen, in love and blinded by promises, Maggie sees marriage to handsome Jack as her great escape. However, she soon finds herself abandoned with a beautiful baby when Jack disappears. Maggie is forced to seek a new life away from the East End of London and finds herself a job at a hotel in Yarmouth.

I sent 19-year-old Phyllis, my youngest recruit, into a city crawling with enemy soldiers. And this beautiful house on a tree-lined street, the headquarters of cold-hearted German soldiers, was the last place she was seen. I trail my fingers along the gilded furniture and see the light dance off the glittering chandeliers. On the top floor, I find the dates inscribed by beaten prisoners, and I know my girl was shown no mercy.

Gemma Hayden has returned to her hometown of Alice Springs for a new job as a primary school teacher. It's been six years since her family broke apart following the disappearance of her twin brother. And the scars still run deep. Hard on the heels of her homecoming, Saul Pearce, the man she once loved, is reposted from Parks and Wildlife in Darwin back to Alice. When an old car wreck is uncovered, washed down the river to Ruby Gap, Saul investigates only to find that the wreck belonged to Ethan, Gemma's twin—and there's a coded note for her in the glovebox.

In the quiet Dutch countryside, 15-year-old Sofie returns home from school to find two armed men in her home. One is holding his rifle to her father’s temple, and the other is ransacking her mother’s purse. Though the Nazis find no proof that the family is Jewish, Sofie knows they have to leave. Although they find safety in a neighbor’s attic, they cannot stay there forever. But a resistance has grown; the town has built a village in the woods to hide Jewish people, and the Nazis can't find it. When Sofie’s mother finds out that they have one space left, Sofie is told to go.

Billeted together in the attic of Latimer House—a place where secrets abound—Evelyn, Betty and Judith soon form a bond of friendship that carries them through the war. Because nothing is stronger than women united. Tucked away in the Buckinghamshire countryside, Latimer House, a grand country estate, stands proudly—a witness to some of greatest secrets of WW2.

East Prussia, 1944. When the war comes to 12-year-old Agnes’ village, she finds herself stuck between two terrifying armies. Every man she’s ever known has been forced to fight for the Nazis, and as the Red Army approaches every innocent woman and child is made to leave their home. Then tragedy strikes and she and her brother, Dieter, find themselves alone in vast, isolated woodland, and Agnes must protect Dieter at all costs....

When Ellie and her family move to a tiny village in rural Wales, it’s meant to be a new beginning for all of them. They have decided to take over her husband’s family inn, leaving behind their old life and troubles in America.

It’s 1837, and immigrating to a small New Zealand fishing village is an opportunity for Ida Lange’s family to build a better future. Yet for Ida, raised in a strict, religious, tight-knit German community, so much is still forbidden to a woman. Yearning for the poor day laborer she shared books with as a child, Ida is now trapped in a dire marriage to a man of her father’s choosing.

Paris, 1944. “Traitor!” yells the crowd as they push me down onto a stool. “Nazi collaborator.” Tears blur my vision as the razor grazes my scalp, waves of blonde hair falling to the ground. As men paint a swastika across my face, I hold onto one small glimmer of hope. They have no idea who I am.

Brianna loves her new job as maid to Lady Marguerite. Like many high nobles, Marguerite is attended by echoes, silent creatures who look exactly like her and move in perfect synchronicity. News soon comes that Marguerite has been invited to the royal city as a potential bride for the crown prince. Brianna is delighted to accompany Marguerite to the city - and perhaps get a chance to continue her own flirtation with Nico, one of the king’s inquisitors. Then, disaster strikes on the road when they come under attack.

A Suitable Boy is Vikram Seth's epic love story set in India. Funny and tragic, with engaging, brilliantly observed characters, it is as close as you can get to Dickens for the twentieth century. The story unfolds through four middle class families: the Mehras, Kappoors, Khans, and Chatterjis. Lata Mehra, a university student, is under pressure from her mother to get married. But not to just anyone she happens to fall in love with.

On the verge of a stilted life as an aristocrat's wife, Poppy Hammond does the only sensible thing - she flees the chapel in her wedding gown. Assisted by the handsome curate who calls himself Sebastian Cantrip, she spirits away to her estranged father's quiet country village, pursued by the family she left in uproar. But when the dust of her broken engagement settles and Sebastian disappears under mysterious circumstances, Poppy discovers there is more to her hero than it seems.

The daughter of a distinguished soldier, Bess Crawford follows in his patriotic footsteps, volunteering to serve her country as a nurse during the Great War. In 1916 she promises Lieutenant Arthur Graham that she will carry his dying request to a brother. When Bess arrives at the Graham house in Kent, Jonathan Graham listens to his brother's last wishes with surprising indifference.

Amory Ames is a wealthy young woman who questions her marriage to her notoriously charming playboy husband Milo. Looking for a change, she accepts a request for help from her former fiance, Gil Trent. Amory accompanies Gil to the luxurious Brightwell Hotel in an attempt to circumvent the marriage of his sister Emmeline to Rupert Howe, a disreputable ladies' man. Amory sees in the situation a grim reflection of her own floundering marriage.

New York, 1937: When estranged sisters Clara and Madeleine Sommers learn their grandmother is dying, they agree to fulfill her last wish: to travel across Europe - together. They are to deliver three letters, in which Violet will say good-bye to those she hasn’t seen since traveling to Europe 40 years earlier. Clara, ever-dutiful, sees the trip as an inconvenient detour before her wedding to millionaire Charles Hancock, but it’s also a chance to embrace her love of art. Budding journalist Madeleine relishes the opportunity to develop her ambitions....

Despite warnings from the townspeople, Victoria Winters accepts the offer to come to the strange Collinwood as Governess. For some curious reason, she feels the secret of her past may be uncovered in the bleak manor high on Widow’s Hill. From the Moment she arrives, Victoria becomes the target of someone in the house determined to destroy her. As the wind moans and the rain lashes around the isolated Collinwood, Victoria, without friends in the manor, feels death close in on her - a choking, frightening death.

Guy de Maupassant is revered for his naturalistic fiction, which brilliantly captures flesh-and-blood characters as it evokes the most telling details of everyday life. Considered one of the finest French novels ever written, Bel Ami follows journalist Georges Duroy and his increasing stature among the Paris elite. With an immense thirst for power, Georges is not above an almost gleeful use of wealthy mistresses to achieve his ends.

It is 1944 in Budapest, and the Germans have invaded. Miklos Nagy risks his life and confronts the dreaded Adolf Eichmann in an attempt save thousands of Hungarian Jews from the death camps. But no one could have foreseen the consequences.... It is 2005 in Sydney, and Annika Barnett sets out on a journey that takes her to Budapest and Tel Aviv to discover the truth about the mysterious man who rescued her grandmother in 1944.

From Italy in 1733 to Edinburgh in 1831 to a series of chilling murders in London in 1870 and a lethal game of revenge decades later, a watch touches lives with misfortune - until it comes into the hands of one young woman who might be able to stop it for good. This outstanding collaboration between four outstanding novelists follows characters who are irrevocably linked by fate, each one playing a key role in breaking the curse once and for all.

Lady Susan Vernon, middle-aged and recently widowed, has retained her looks and appealing vivacity. She makes use of her bereavement and her loss of wealth by imposing herself on the hospitality of relatives, and by amusing herself in flirtation with the various men who fall under her spell. Lady Susan has a daughter, Frederica, who is bashful and innocent—in stark contrast to her unfeeling and manipulative mother. Her mother is anxious to marry Frederica off to a spouse of appropriate wealth and social standing, and also, perhaps, to capture a new mate for herself.

Lady Elizabeth Davenport is desperate. Her hand in marriage has been offered to the highest bidder, a distressing proposition in and of itself but made all the more repulsive when she meets her father’s first choice for her hand: Lord Pinweather. When her parents refuse to hear her pleas, Liz is forced to take drastic measures - she will impersonate her maid and begin anew in America on her own terms. Once on board the ship to America, another passenger, Lord Barton, almost immediately discovers her true status as a noble.

On his deathbed, Franz Kafka asked that all his unpublished manuscripts be burned. Fortunately, his request was ignored, allowing such works as The Trial to earn recognition among the literary masterpieces of the 20th century. This brilliant new translation of The Castle captures comedic elements and visual imagery that earlier interpretations missed.

This acclaimed new translation of Dostoyevsky's 'psychological record of a crime' gives his dark masterpiece of murder and pursuit a renewed vitality, expressing its jagged, staccato urgency and fevered atmosphere as never before. Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders alone through the slums of St. Petersburg, deliriously imagining himself above society's laws. But when he commits a random murder, only suffering ensues.

The new season is starting and the Master of Ceremonies is missing. Max, an Arbiter of the Split Worlds Treaty, is assigned with the task of finding him - with no one to help but a dislocated soul and a mad sorcerer. There is a witness, but his memories have been bound by magical chains only the enemy can break. A rebellious woman trying to escape her family may prove to be the ally Max needs. But can she be trusted? And why does she want to give up eternal youth and the life of privilege she’s been born into?