Ambrose Ashley, Philip's cousin, guardian and god, married Rachel in Italy, and died there. Jealous of his marriage and grief-stricken by his death, Philip prepares to meet his cousin's widow with hatred in his heart.

Isabella Waverly only means to comfort the woman felled on a London street. In her final dying moments, she thrusts a letter into Bella?s hand. It?s an offer of employment in the kitchens of Buckingham Palace, and everything the budding young chef desperately wants: an escape from the constrictions of her life as a lowly servant. In the stranger?s stead, Bella can spread her wings. Arriving as Helen Barton from Yorkshire, she pursues her passion for...

When a series of disasters hit their favourite pub, sleuthing friends Carole and Jude wonder if it might be more than a run of bad luck. Then a young man is found stabbed in the pub's kitchen. Carole and Jude need to uncover who the killer is before it's last orders for the pub - and themselves.

Faro is faced by the possibility that one of his own family is involved in the murder of the laird's wife by arsenic poisoning on the Orkney island of Balfray.