Domestic Psychological

On a sunny Friday afternoon, beloved teacher Mrs Walker and her eight-year-old son wave goodbye to their friends in the school playground. But they never make it home. It’s only been a week, but the bright little faces at the picture-perfect school I’ve stepped into have captured my heart. Their big doe eyes, their paint-covered fingers and clinging hugs. They’ve been through so much, with their favourite teacher and classmate still missing. I’m doing all I can to help them adjust, but I can’t avoid the rumours that say Cate Walker’s charismatic husband is involved in her disappearance.

Your daughter isn't answering your calls. She's not replying to your messages. You rush to her house. She's slumped in the basement, dying and alone. You desperately call for help. She whispers a single word. Someone is keeping secrets. And it must be someone you know.

Grace has a perfect life. Then her husband replaces her with a younger, blonder version. Three years later, Grace’s sixteen-year-old daughter Tara is stabbed to death in a seedy hotel. Grace’s life stops. After a harrowing trial, Tara’s boyfriend is convicted of her murder. At least now it’s over—until someone breaks into Grace’s house and ransacks Tara’s belongings. Now the questions have only just begun. Grace thought she knew her daughter. But Tara had been keeping secrets from her. Very dark secrets.

Naomi always wanted to be a mother. But three years ago, her husband left, taking their child with him. Now, her daughter has come to stay, and Naomi knows it's her one chance to rebuild her family. But the night ends in a terrible accident. And Naomi tells a lie she can never take back: She reports her daughter missing.

Mum passed recently. It was sudden and unexpected. On the cusp of adulthood, my twin sister, Skye, and I are left with decisions to make that will change our lives forever. As identical twins, we’d normally stick together like glue, but anger and grief gets the better of us and we push and pull in different directions. At an impasse, each of us stubbornly gets our wish. Finding myself alone and without the other half of me, I’m desperately lonely. I need a friend. But, when I find that special someone, I know I’ve made a terrible mistake and trusted the wrong person.

Paula worries that her marriage to Tommy is hanging by a thread. She loves how safe her husband makes her feel, but lately, it seems like he's pulling away from her, and he keeps avoiding a much-needed conversation about finally having children.

Katelyn smiles around at her husband and friends, gathered to celebrate her 36th birthday in their beautiful home decorated with fairy lights. But the next day Katelyn wakes up shaken and terrified in a hospital bed. She doesn’t remember the sweet taste of birthday cake icing, or how angry her best friend was at midnight, or the terrible things her husband said. She doesn’t remember the party at all. When she asks her husband what happened the night of the party he says "nothing". But her blood runs cold at the way his voice lilts slightly. The way it always does when he is lying.

California, 2011: Nicole Forbes lives a quiet life in the small seaside town of Coronado with her husband and daughter. She is not expecting a writer to knock on her door asking for her personal insight into the downfall of the biggest British band of the 1980s—unveiling the threads of a life she left behind years ago. The same day, her daughter goes missing and the school claims her aunt picked her up . . . but she doesn’t have an aunt. Convinced of a link between the two, Nicole is forced to revisit long-abandoned memories from her past to protect everything she now holds dear.

Gil is living a quiet life as a creative writing professor in a bucolic Vermont town, when he receives some shocking news: His sister and her husband have been killed in a car accident, and their only son is coming to live with him and his family.

After a difficult few months, Karina's looking forward to a short break in Turkey with her husband and four-year-old son, Jacob. The marriage has been showing signs of strain lately, so it'll be a chance to relax. But on their first morning, Karina is startled to discover she's slept in late. Where's Jacob? She rushes to his room, but his bed is empty and he's nowhere to be found in the villa. Frantic with worry, she raises the alarm with her husband—but he stares at her blankly. He says he has no idea what she's talking about. They don't have any children.

From the outside, it seems Grace has it all. Only she knows about the cracks in her picture-perfect life...and the huge secret behind them. After all, who can she trust? Her brother, Josh, is thousands of miles away, and he and Grace have never been close—he was always their parents’ favourite. Her best friend, Coco, walked away from her years ago; their friendship irreparably fractured by the choices they’ve made. And her husband, Marcus, seems like a different man lately. Grace can’t shake the feeling that he’s hiding something.

In a small town, three mothers wave goodbye to their children at the school gates. Naomi has lived in Exton Cross since she was born, and she knows everything there is to know about everyone. Aleema hates it here. It’s been three years and she’s yet to make a single friend. And she’s sure the other mums whisper about her behind her back. Kelly is an outsider. New to the town, she arrives with nothing but her son—and a dark secret. By the end of the school day, one of their children will be missing. And rumours will swirl that one of them knows why.

Annie never much believed in love. That is, until meeting Mark. After crossing paths on morning commutes, they connect at a group counseling session for trauma survivors. Each recognizes something in the other, though both hide their own troubled pasts. It’s a whirlwind romance that propels Annie through their courtship, all the way to her wedding day—a day she couldn’t have predicted for herself once upon a time yet now feels surer about than anything in her life.

Thirty-six-year-old stay-at-home soccer mom Kate Burke is happily married to Matt Parsons, although their marriage looks very different behind closed doors. Kate is no longer interested in having sex with her husband. So, while they still love each other madly, they make an arrangement: Matt can have one-night stands with other women on work trips, but when he returns home, he has to tell Kate about them—every juicy detail.

Journalist Joan Lurie has written a seething article exposing a notorious newspaper tycoon as a sexual predator. But the night it goes live, she is brutally attacked. Traumatized and suffering the effects of a concussion, she moves into a highly secure apartment in Manhattan called the Refuge, which was at one time a Magdalen Laundry. Joan should be safe here, so how can she explain the cryptic incidents that are happening?

Once you find our perfect little town nestled between the gorgeous hills, you never want to leave. My husband and I both grew up here and we knew there was nowhere better to raise our two sweet girls… But when the moving van pulls up, and a mother and daughter jump out, my blood runs cold. I met the mother once on our summer holiday and I let slip a terrible secret, something no one here must ever know… Fear rushes through me as I remember that night, but I’m sure I never told her where we live.

After twenty years apart, Matthew and Helena have rekindled their college romance and are away in Iceland on their first holiday together. Swept up in the romance on a mountain hike, one moment they are taking the perfect photo, the next Helena is hanging from the cliff edge…

Charlotte has everything in life that she ever could have hoped for: a doting, artistic husband, a small-but-thriving flower shop, and her sweet, smart five-year-old daughter, Daisy. Her relationship with her mother might be strained, but the distance between them helps. And her younger brother Rocco may have horrible taste in women, but when he introduces his new girlfriend to Charlotte and her family, they are cautiously optimistic that she could be The One. Daisy seems to love Ruth, and she can’t be any worse than the klepto Rocco brought home the last time.

Mark has a wife and two kids, a sense of purpose, financial security, and a fragile contentment. However wistful his visions of the future, Mark knows who he is. But a summer trip with his abrasive brother-in-law and unhappy sister-in-law leave Mark questioning everything he thinks he knows about his family—and himself.

Hadley is one of those rare people who feels she's living the perfect life. She has a husband she loves, a charming daughter, and a job that is deeply fulfilling. Sometimes it almost seems like a fairy tale. Then, little by little, things start to go wrong. There's the creepy guy from down the street who keeps staring at her teenage daughter, there's the strangely needy woman who moves in next door. Just little wrinkles, but then Hadley's world is turned upside down when someone close to her is murdered.