What if the perfect life you envy was rotten to the core? Three brand-new friends. Three very different families. Way too many secrets. Gisela, Sally and Kate become close when they move into the same new housing estate. But behind their shiny front doors, each has something to hide. Three lives collide in this gripping story about friendship, motherhood and marriage and the façade of perfection people present to the world.

Steph has spent decades building a family with her husband, Mal, and putting their family first. She is the glue that holds them all together, and she has convinced herself that she’s been happy...most of the time. But as she stands at her birthday party watching her husband talking about a wonderful marriage she doesn’t fully recognise, the doubts that she has been pushing down for so long begin to grow.

Lara's life looks perfect on the surface. Gorgeous doting husband Massimo, sweet little son Sandro and the perfect home. Lara knows something about Massimo. Something she can't tell anyone else or everything Massimo has worked so hard for will be destroyed: his job, their reputation, their son. This secret is keeping Lara a prisoner in her marriage. Maggie is married to Massimo's brother Nico. She knows all of Nico's darkest secrets - or so she thinks. The one day she discovers a letter in the attic....

Susie did something that she knows she will always regret: giving her baby son up for adoption, to keep her infidelity secret from her family. Louise, Susie's daughter, feels the effects of that decision echoing down through the years - her mother has always been difficult, too strict with her but not strict enough with her sister, Grace, who is wild and out of control. And Danny, Susie's husband, adores her but has always sensed something wrong at the heart of their marriage.

When Lydia was a teenager, she made a decision that ruined her family's life. They've spent the last 30 years living with the consequences and doing their best to pretend it never happened. Lydia's husband, the gorgeous and reliable Mark, and her two teenage children know nothing about that summer back in 1982. And that's the way Lydia wants it to stay. The opportunity to come clean is long gone, and now it's not the lie that matters; it's the betrayal of hiding the truth for so long.

Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction." She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income. In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail.

Finally, Cath has met someone: a man she loves, Robin, and who adores her in return. And after years of managing fine on her own, running a successful business, raising her son and caring for her elderly mother, she feels she deserves some happiness. She expected everyone to be delighted for her. But her friends and family are suspicious of Robin. And Rebecca, a desperate single mother whom Cath has hired as a live-in housekeeper, doesn’t trust him either.

Jo had thought that her life - and her heart - was full. With a busy job, a husband and a teenage daughter who is going off the rails, keeping her life running smoothly had already felt hard enough. But now Jo sits at the funeral of her best friend, Ginny, crushed by the loss of a friendship that had endured for 30 years: from college and their first days at work through to settling down and raising their own children. Against her husband’s wishes, Jo has made a life-changing decision: to take in Ginny’s teenage son, Victor, and raise him as her own.

When Elizabeth drops her beloved only daughter off at college, she holds back the tears…fighting her worries about an empty nest with the thought of all the adventures that she and her husband Joel can now enjoy together. But as soon as they sit down to eat dinner that evening, Joel drops a bombshell. He wants a break. Searching for an escape, Elizabeth discovers an apartment in Rome that is only available for three months rental to ‘an English woman of a certain age’.

Annie Beyers has everything - a beautiful house, a loving husband, and an adorable daughter. It’s a day like any other when she takes Hannah to the pediatrician…until she wakes hours later from a car accident. When she asks for her daughter, confused doctors tell Annie that Hannah never existed. In fact, nothing after waking from the crash is the same as Annie remembers. Five happy years of her life apparently never happened.

In the summer of 1969, 14-year-old Lucas Painter carries a huge weight on his shoulders. His brother is fighting in Vietnam. His embattled parents are locked in a never-ending war. And his best friend, Connor, is struggling with his own family issues. To find relief from the chaos, Lucas takes long, meandering walks, and one day he veers into the woods.

Growing up, Joanne suffered at the hands of a violent boyfriend and controlling relatives, as her mother lapsed into a downward spiral following the break-up of her marriage. But the consequences of her mother's lifestyle turned out to be worse than Joanne could ever have imagined. She already knew about the baby buried in a shallow makeshift grave next to the family plot. But when Joanne came across a red plastic bin in her mother's wardrobe in 2009, she realised that the family home held an even more sinister secret.

Holly Kendrick’s husband is dead. Holly saw it all. In one violent moment, a hit-and-run accident turns Holly’s life upside down. Then a fixer for the high-powered guilty party approaches Holly with an offer she is in no position to refuse. Holly and her daughter, Savannah, will want for nothing, beginning with a luxury dream house - all for the price of their silence. But when their sudden appearance in privileged Calabasas, California, piques the curiosity of neighbors, the price becomes greater than they imagined.

Years after an Easter weekend tragedy devastates a family, they return to the house they grew up in to unearth the many secrets hidden within the nooks and crannies of home.

Alice Hunter is smarting from the raw deal life has thrown her way: suddenly single, jobless and forced to move home to her parents' tiny seaside town. And now she faces an uncomfortable truth. She wants her twin sister Libby's enviable life. Libby's closest friend Jess Dekic has been around the Hunter family for so long she might as well be blood. She's always considered herself a sister closer to Libby than Alice ever could be.

What if the perfect life you envy was rotten to the core? Three brand-new friends. Three very different families. Way too many secrets. Gisela, Sally and Kate become close when they move into the same new housing estate. But behind their shiny front doors, each has something to hide. Three lives collide in this gripping story about friendship, motherhood and marriage and the façade of perfection people present to the world.

Lara's life looks perfect on the surface. Gorgeous doting husband Massimo, sweet little son Sandro and the perfect home. Lara knows something about Massimo. Something she can't tell anyone else or everything Massimo has worked so hard for will be destroyed: his job, their reputation, their son. This secret is keeping Lara a prisoner in her marriage. Maggie is married to Massimo's brother Nico. She knows all of Nico's darkest secrets - or so she thinks. The one day she discovers a letter in the attic....

Finally, Cath has met someone: a man she loves, Robin, and who adores her in return. And after years of managing fine on her own, running a successful business, raising her son and caring for her elderly mother, she feels she deserves some happiness. She expected everyone to be delighted for her. But her friends and family are suspicious of Robin. And Rebecca, a desperate single mother whom Cath has hired as a live-in housekeeper, doesn’t trust him either.

Steph has spent decades building a family with her husband, Mal, and putting their family first. She is the glue that holds them all together, and she has convinced herself that she’s been happy...most of the time. But as she stands at her birthday party watching her husband talking about a wonderful marriage she doesn’t fully recognise, the doubts that she has been pushing down for so long begin to grow.

Jo had thought that her life - and her heart - was full. With a busy job, a husband and a teenage daughter who is going off the rails, keeping her life running smoothly had already felt hard enough. But now Jo sits at the funeral of her best friend, Ginny, crushed by the loss of a friendship that had endured for 30 years: from college and their first days at work through to settling down and raising their own children. Against her husband’s wishes, Jo has made a life-changing decision: to take in Ginny’s teenage son, Victor, and raise him as her own.

What kind of women do daughters become when their fathers are missing and their mothers can't love them? How do they find love and ways to love themselves? Nearly three decades of secrets lie between Lola Ashby and the two girls she reluctantly raised. Now, prompted by the one father figure she respects, older daughter Frankie agrees to drive from Portland to visit her ailing mother, who abandoned the girls when they were in high school.

After serving time for a crime she didn’t commit, Evangeline returns home to discover her father left her solely responsible for the family’s failing ranch, her mother blames her for her father’s death, and her brothers want her out of their way. With her family’s future squarely on her shoulders, she desperately searches for ways to save their home - before they lose everything. Her only ally: Chris Chambers. The cop who sent her away is positive she took the fall for someone else. And if she helps him track down the real criminals, he’ll clear her record.

Thrown Away Child is a memoir covering Louise Allen’s abusive childhood in a foster home, how she survived - using her love of art as a sanctuary - and how she hopes to right old wrongs now by fostering children herself and campaigning for the improvement of foster care services. It is a compelling and inspirational story. This book gives a voice to the many children who grew up unhappily in care.

Margaret Jacobsen is just about to step into the bright future she’s worked for so hard and so long: a new dream job, a fiancé she adores, and the promise of a picture-perfect life just around the corner. Then, suddenly, on what should have been one of the happiest days of her life, everything she worked for is taken away in a brief, tumultuous moment. In the hospital and forced to face the possibility that nothing will ever be the same again, Maggie must confront the unthinkable.

Susie did something that she knows she will always regret: giving her baby son up for adoption, to keep her infidelity secret from her family. Louise, Susie's daughter, feels the effects of that decision echoing down through the years - her mother has always been difficult, too strict with her but not strict enough with her sister, Grace, who is wild and out of control. And Danny, Susie's husband, adores her but has always sensed something wrong at the heart of their marriage.