In the bedroom above her immense studio at Burntcoat, the celebrated sculptor Edith Harkness is making her final preparations. The symptoms are well known: her life will draw to an end in the coming days. Downstairs, the studio is a crucible glowing with memories and desire. It was here, when the first lockdown came, that she brought Halit. The lover she barely knew. A presence from another culture. A doorway into a new and feverish world.

Lake District, 1942, and spring is in the air for the women at Mary Vale Mother & Baby Home. Beautiful Stella, the head-turning cook of a munitions factory, has been swept off her feet by a handsome GI. He proposes when she falls pregnant, but soon after he is moved to a new base his letters stop arriving. Then there is Lillian, who is deeply unimpressed when she is conscripted as a Land Girl miles from her home. But she soon learns to love the rugged...

'Panic as Man Burns Crumpets' is the inside story of local newspapers during the past 25 years, told in a way that's funny, poignant and very revealing.

Salome Delaney didn't have a great start in life. But her abusive childhood came to a tragic conclusion with the killing of her tyrant mother, Trina, by a jealous ex-boyfriend. At least, that's what the police say. Sal has never believed kind Wulf, who tried to protect her from her mother's dark side, could have committed murder, but the evidence was irrefutable. Now an adult, with a job as a Collison Investigation Officer, Sal's done her best to...

As dawn breaks on the farm, Helen Rebanks makes a mug of tea, relishing the few minutes of quiet before the house stirs. Within the hour the sounds of her husband, James, and their four children will fill the kitchen. There are also six sheepdogs, two ponies, 20 chickens, 50 cattle and 500 sheep to care for. Helen is a farmer's wife. Hers is a story that is rarely told, despite being one we think we know. Weaving past and present, Helen shares the...

Here is a walking guide to the Lake District National Park, with 20 best routes chosen by the park rangers. Each walk varies in length from 2 to 10 km and can be completed in less than 4 hours.

Christmas has arrived in Cumbria, and wedding bells are ringing. But an ice-cold killer is waiting in the fells. As the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve, DI James Walker receives a phone call that puts paid to his Christmas break. During the wedding of the year at a lakeside hotel, the bride's sister has vanished. When Rachel left the wedding breakfast before her speech, newly-wed Libby was furious. But as the night went on with no sign of...

As the Great War looms, will the women of Kendal rise to meet the challenge?After giving birth to her daughter, Kate O'Connor finds herself back in Poor House Lane with some momentous decisions to make.Faced with the opportunity to move out of the slums, she invests her unexpected fortune in a new shoe factory to challenge Eliot Tyson's monopoly over the workforce, regardless of whether or not he is the father of her children.But nothing is ever that...

After years of living in the past, Ella is ready to start building a future. The perfect opportunity presents itself when she's offered a short-term role at Halesmere House in the Lake District, and tasked with kick-starting its artists' residence. But when Ella arrives at Halesmere, she wonders if she's made a huge mistake after she clashes with Max, the new owner. Max has his own reasons to be unsettled by her presence, but despite his misgivings...

Thirlmere hides a deadly secret. Drought hits the Lake District, uncovering a skeleton at the bottom of Thirlmere reservoir. The case quickly becomes personal for DI Kelly Porter when she discovers it's the remains of an old classmate, missing for over twenty years. Then a day later, another body is found in a caravan park, its head broken and bloody. Kelly suspects these two crimes are linked. But if she's right, that means there's a ruthless killer...