Lisa Jewell

Then: Ellie Mack was many things. She was 15. She was the youngest of three. She was her mother's golden girl. She was heading towards a perfect post-exams summer holiday, with her whole life ahead of her. And then, she was gone. Now: Laurel Mack is living in the past. It's been 10 years since Ellie disappeared, and Laurel's never given up hope of finding her daughter. But now, she no longer has a choice in the matter. It's time to let go. And then...

East Yorkshire. Single mum Alice Lake finds a man on the beach outside her house. He has no name, no jacket, no idea what he is doing there. Against her better judgement she invites him in to her home. Surrey. Twenty-one-year-old Lily Drew has only been married for three weeks. When her new husband fails to come home from work one night she is left stranded in a new country where she knows no one. Then the police tell her that her husband never existed....

London: On a fine avenue of grand houses, big cars and electronic gates, lies a neglected urban wasteland. It is nearly midnight and very cold. Yet in this dark place of long grass and tall trees where cats hunt and foxes shriek, a girl is waiting. When Saffyre Maddox was 10 something terrible happened and she's carried the pain of it around with her ever since. The man who she thought was going to heal her didn't, and now she hides from him, invisible...

Meet the Bird family so far, all four children have had an idyllic childhood: a cottage in a country village with a warm cosy kitchen filled with love and laughter, and sun-drenched afternoons in its rambling garden. But a tragedy lies in store for the Birds: a tragedy that strikes one Easter weekend, and which is so devastating that, almost imperceptibly, it begins to tear the family apart.

Brothers Tony, Sean and Ned had the perfect upbringing. They adore their parents and actually look forward to coming home for Sunday lunch. But now they're grown up, real life is starting to get in the way.

London, 1920. Arlette works in Liberty by day, and by night is caughty up in a glamorous whirl of parties, clubs, cocktails and jazz. But when tragedy strikes she flees the city, never to return. Over half a century later, in the grungy mid-'90s, her graddaughter Betty arrives in London. She can't wait to begin her new life. But before she can do so, she must find the mysterious woman named in her grandmother's will. What she doesn't know is that...

When Nadine was eleven she fell in love with Dig. A chance meeting with Delilah inspires Nadine to unearth Phil from her past and soon their lives change beyond recognition. Dig, meanwhile, is nursing a broken heart.

When she was nine years old, Melody Browne's house burned down, taking every toy, every photograph, every item of clothing and old Christmas cards with it. But not only did the fire destroy all her possessions, it took all her memories - Melody Browne can remember nothing before her ninth birthday.

In a rambling north London house, failed poet Toby Dobbs has created a refuge for people who need one. But when a quiet tragedy and an unwelcome letter interrupt Toby's sedate existence, he needs his housemates to find some direction in their lives - and fast.

From teenage love in an eighties holiday park to flatshares, relationships, career crises and children, this is the story of two lives separated yet forever entwined, prompting the question 'how do you know if something is really meant to be?'