In New York, Denver, Paris and Berlin, four people have died separately in apparent accidents. Two women - the widows of two of the dead - find themselves under ruthless attack and are drawn together in fear, confusion and for mutual protection. Is there a connection to the mystery behind their husband's deaths?

Lally Fraser, widowed at 20, seeks comfort with dashing young mill owner Roly Sinclair. But when she finds she is expecting his baby, she turns to his dour brother Harry for help. Secretly in love with her, Harry offers her marriage. Roly, though, is anything but pleased. Threatening scandal or worse, he sets out to destroy them both. And when Harry is injured in a vicious attack, Lally must take charge of the mills to protect her children and the...

Mrs Hawkins, a comfortably large young widow, is often called upon to administer advice to colleagues and neighbours. But she follows her own advice, too, and turns from Mrs Hawkins into Nancy: quite a different proposition.

This novel tells of Charlotte Lawrence who returns from Brussels to her Cheshire roots a widow. Her arrival in the village causes all sorts of ructions and eventually she falls in love again, after much hesitation.

Reluctantly she sends her beloved daughter to a foster mother in Cripplegate, little realising she has entrusted Cassy's care to Biddy Henchard, a woman who runs a notorious baby farm in an area full of poverty and disease. Despite her terrible upbringing, Cassy survives the old woman's cruel neglect. All the while she dreams of a mother she has never known, hoping she will come and save her from her dreadful fate. But when Biddy dies suddenly, ten-year-old...

EVERYONE KEEPS TELLING ME I HAVE TO MOVE ON. AND SO HERE I AM, WALKING DOWN THE ROAD WHERE HE DIED, TRYING TO REMEMBER HIM THE RIGHT WAY. A year after her husband Zach's death, Lizzie goes to lay flowers where his fatal accident took place. As she makes her way along the motorway, she thinks about their life together. She wonders whether she has changed since Zach died. She wonders if she will ever feel whole again. At last she reaches the spot. And...

The Spanish House is known to locals as an architectural folly, and it is now nearly derelict to boot. When its reclusive owner dies intestate the Spanish House is left to his city-dwelling niece. For the recently-widowed Isabel, the house is a potential lifeline. For her neighbour Matt McCarthy, the house is revenge.

Bea does not believe in second chances. A widow at fifty-three, she buries her grief in hard work, and soon the deli she runs in Sydney's Surry Hills has a reputation for the best ever carrot cake. But then an email from a cafe-owner in Edinburgh leads her to take a trip to Scotland in the depths of winter. There, transported by the twinkling lights and falling snow, Bea is drawn back to a secret past - and a secret love - that she long ago tried...

There are so many stories hidden behind closed doors. It's late at night and the rain is pouring down on the Dublin city streets. A mother is grieving for her dead child. She stands silently outside the home of the teenage boy she believes responsible. She watches. In a kitchen on the same square, a girl waits anxiously for her mum to come home. She knows exactly where she is, but she knows she cannot reach her. A few doors down, and a widow sits...

"As a state-of-the-city novel, it's richer than John Lanchester's Capital and less pleased with itself than Ian McEwan's Saturday." EVENING STANDARDHoward Pink is a wildly successful businessman still struggling to cope years after his nineteen-year-old daughter disappeared... Beatrice Kizza fled from persecution in Uganda, where homosexuality is illegal, and now works as a maid at a hotel... Esme Reade, an ambitious staff reporter on a Sunday tabloid,...