Showing results by author "Catherine Alliott" in All Categories

Flora's been in love with her husband for 20 years. The trouble is, he's been married to someone else for the past 15. Now she's been invited to spend the summer in the shady lanes and sandy coves of Cornwall. It should be blissful. There's just one small snag: she'll be staying with her former mother-in-law, Belinda. And Flora discovers she's not the only one invited when her ex-husband shows up out of the blue, complete with his new wife. So now there are two small snags.

From the outside, anyone would think that Lucy Palmer has it all: loving children, a dashing husband and a gorgeous home. But when her marriage to Michael comes to an abrupt and unexpected end, her life is turned upside down in a flash. As the truth of her marriage threatens to surface, Lucy seizes the opportunity to swap her house in London - and the stories it hides - for a rural escape to her parents' farmhouse in the Chilterns. But Lucy gets more than she bargained for when she moves back to her childhood home.

Polly Penhalligan is outraged at the suggestion that since getting married to Nick and settling into their beautiful manor farmhouse in Cornwall, she has let herself go. But watching a lot of telly and gorging on biscuits, not getting dressed until lunchtime, and waiting for pregnancy to strike are not the signs of someone living an active and fulfilled life. So Polly does something rash.

Separated in every way but distance, Sebastian resides in a guest cottage across the lawn from Ella's ramshackle farmhouse. When Ella married the handsome, celebrated artist Sebastian Montclair at just 19, she was madly in love. Now, those blissful years of marriage have turned into the definition of an unconventional set-up. With an ex-husband living under her nose and a home crowded by hostile teenaged children, gender-confused chickens—not to mention her hypercritical mother whose own marriage is coming undone—Ella finds comfort in the company of the charming gardener, Ludo.

When Flora, James, and their two daughters are offered a holiday in a chateau in the South of France, they jump at the chance. Flora is excited to exchange the confines of London and the drudgery of everyday life for a blissful family vacation, but she didn't anticipate a mysterious guest and a whole heap of family baggage to come along, as well. The trip of a lifetime takes some very unexpected turns when James develops a schoolboy crush on a famous singer and Flora is distracted by ghosts from her past. Will the ties of family be strong enough to withstand this “dream” vacation?