Two days ago, the Wilson family checked into the imposing, glass-fronted Lodge, surrounded by snow and perched perilously on the edge of a cliff looking out to a gray sea. Not everyone was looking forward to the family get-together. But mother-in-law Angela insisted the winter trip would help heal their rifts....

Today, all my worst fears came true. I thought I had escaped the dark secrets of my teenage years. But when my son is accused by one of my students of a crime I know only too well, my past comes hurtling into my present. But what can I do? I love my son. I need to believe him no matter what.

Of course, I’m not going to murder her in the night. I need my laptop back first. That’s the whole point of making friends with Emily Harper, author of the hugely successful novel Diary of an Octopus. So I could get into her apartment and take back what’s mine. Emily doesn’t know who I really am. She thinks I’m her biggest fan, her new best friend who happens to need a place to stay for a few days. She doesn’t realize the laptop she found—and took—from a busy airport almost two years ago was mine. I don’t care about the laptop, just what's on it: my diary.

I open the creaking oak front door of my beautiful country house to see a stranger on my doorstep. The woman is stunning with glossy red hair and flawless make up. "Can I help you?" I ask. That was my first mistake. Alexis tells me she is a distant relative and shows me a DNA match on her phone. She has no family and would love to get to know us. My husband Hugh invites her in to join our dinner party. As we drink wine, she opens up about her sad childhood. Her amber eyes are mesmerizing, and I can see my husband is being drawn in by her story. Then she asks for our help.

Wheeling my suitcase down the familiar, hedge-lined street, I smile at the sound of children playing in the park nearby. Suddenly, there’s a screech of car brakes. I rush over to see a bent bike wheel sticking out of the ditch, and underneath, a little boy....

Lucy gets the same bus every day. She hopes to get a seat to herself, tries to avoid eye contact, and, if she’s really lucky, reads a chapter of her book. But it’s a Friday - and the bus is always crammed at the end of the week. Personal space doesn’t exist. She keeps her elbows close and clings to a pole at every juddering stop. When she gets off, something feels different. An envelope stuffed with thousands of pounds is in her bag. Is it the answer to her prayers, or the beginning of a nightmare? Because, in the end, everything has a price.

I pinch the screen to zoom until I’m staring at the face of a ghost. A man with very short hair, staring directly at the camera with piercing brown eyes. He is as he was when I last saw him: wrinkles around the corners of the eyes and a knowing smirk. That’s the expression I see when I can’t sleep. My body tenses. It can’t be him. It’s not my ex-husband. It’s not David. I know that better than anyone because he didn’t walk out on me. He didn’t disappear two years ago and he’s not a missing person. I know that for a fact because I’m the one who killed him.

Everything changes when Mark comes home from a work trip with dark circles under his eyes. The police want to question him about the murder of a beautiful, blonde young woman. Mark swears he had nothing to do with it, that she was a colleague, nothing more.

Everyone’s invited. Someone will never leave. In a grand townhouse rented specially for the evening, Hannah beams at her guests under the sparkling chandelier. Her sisters, her mother and aunt, her best friends...although she’ll miss them all so much when she moves away, tonight is about celebrating the happy times and raising a toast to the future. But the next morning, one of the guests is found cold and lifeless in their pristine white bed. Hannah is desperate to call the police. After all, it must have been an accident.

I return home to our beautiful house on a chilly winter evening expecting to find my handsome husband Richard waiting for me by the fire. We’re still so in love, and he always takes care of me. He usually comes straight back from work. But tonight, our antique clock ticks on through the dark evening, with no sign of him. Then a knock at the door shatters my perfect life. A 12-year-old-girl, Alice from the village, has been found unconscious in the field behind our house. They say she was last seen getting into Richard’s car.

You shared everything for nine months. But you don't know her at all. When Ali meets Rebecca, she feels an instant connection. Both pregnant, with babies due the same day, Ali can't wait to share the highs and lows of motherhood with her new friend. Rebecca is everything Ali wishes she could be - beautiful, confident, wealthy. But Ali senses in her the same loneliness she's been feeling since moving to the suburbs. Maybe they can help each other, and Ali won't feel so alone anymore. Then their due date comes and goes, and Ali hears nothing for weeks.

Callie was living in a ten-acre home in the stunning Adirondacks with her husband. She missed her son, who was away at college, but she was coping pretty well with her empty nest. Then, the nightmare began. Her husband Abel skidded off the road into an icy lake. His truck hit a tree and plunged into the frigid water below. Now, this once-vital 43-year-old carpenter lies in a coma, surrounded by bleeping machines and the hushed rumble of the ward at Pearl Medical Center in Vermont. The police say it was an accident, but the details remain murky.

Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summer crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins. A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

A forged reference and a fake social media page is all it takes to convince the Mayers I’m the perfect person to look after their son Wyatt. Some people would be scared to move to a remote mountain village with a family they’ve never met, but it’s exactly where I need to be. Because Wyatt is my child....

My husband, James, and I love living on Smith Street, with its neat houses and friendly family barbecues. Our daughter, Scarlett, can play outside with the other local kids–it’s somewhere nothing bad could ever happen. Or so I thought....