Sophie May has a secret. One that she's successfully kept for years. It's meant that she's had to give up her dreams of going to university and travelling the world to stay in her little village, living with her mum and working in the local teashop. But then she meets the gorgeous Billy - an actor with ambitions to make it to the top. And when they fall in love, Sophie is whisked away from the comfort of her life into Billy's glamorous - but ruthless...

Illustrated throughout, the book looks at the social, geological and architectural history behind the structure of English villages, and examines how industries, urbanization, transport and changing traditions have influenced how we have been using and designing our buildings over the centuries.

The village of Little Creek, the long winter of 1867. The first flakes of snow are falling when Daisy Marshall, secretly engaged to her master's son, finds herself jilted at the altar. Heartbroken, Daisy flees to the small village of Little Creek, nestled on the coast of Essex. There she is warmly welcomed - but the village is poverty-stricken, suffering under a cruel Lord of the manor. And when cholera hits, the villagers are truly in dire straits....

Timothy Buchannan buys an abandoned house on the edge of an isolated village on the coast, sight unseen. When he sees the state of it, he questions the wisdom of his move but starts to renovate the house for his wife, Lauren, to join him there. When the villagers see smoke rising from the chimney of the neglected house, they are disturbed and intrigued by the presence of the incomer, intrigue that begins to verge on obsession. And the longer Timothy...

This omnibus edition of 'Doctor Finlay of Tannochbrae' and 'Adventures of a Black Bag' revive Cronin's masterpiece for a contemporary audience - stories which are tragic, funny and wry and which are a celebration of Cronin's tremendous talent.

Deserted settlement sites are all around us and all British people will live within a very few miles of an example. Most of these settlements perished in the medieval period, when dwellings were prone to decay. This book not only explores such abandoned villages, but shows readers how they can investigate them for themselves.

Fairacre is a village of cottages, a church and the school - and at the heart of the school, its headmistress, Miss Read. Through her discerning eye, we meet the villagers of Fairacre and see their trials and tribulations, from the irascible school cleaner Mrs Pringle, to the young schoolchildren with their scraped knees, hopeful faces and inevitable mischief. Miss Read takes us through the school year, beginning with the Christmas term when the bitterly...

Primavera Blackstone is enjoying the quiet life in an idyllic village on the Catalan coast of Spain. The attractive single mother & eight-year-old Tom, son of the late & still lamented Oz Blackstone, are popular figures in the tiny community. But her close friendship with the parish priest has eyebrows rising & tongues wagging.

'The Lost Village' describes a journey in search of the true English village, through dales and suburbs, moors and estates. It captures the voices of poachers and gamekeepers, farmers and hunters, nurses and postmen, teachers and craftsmen, to demonstrate that the past is never so simple as we imagine.

Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a remote Irish village would be the perfect escape. After twenty-five years in the Chicago police force, and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But then a local kid comes looking for his help. His brother has gone missing, and no one, least of all the police, seems to care. Cal wants nothing to do with any kind of investigation, but...