D. E. Stevenson

Elfrida Jane, accustomed to the energetic life of a small-part actress, finds life at Mountain Cross very different. At first her mother's old cliff-top house seems lonely and bleak, compared to the glitter and bustle of the theatre....

Franz von Heiden, son of a Nazi official and an English mother, comes to England early in 1938 to visit his English cousins - and study them. He is both accepted and entertained by Wynne Braithwaite's family and friends....

When their father dies, none of the three Harcourt girls are particularly upset. The loss of the family's income, however, is not something so easily overcome....

When Will Hastie finally decides to retire from the military and return home to Scotland, he intends to settle down on his family estate and learn to become a farmer....

Shortly before Bel's marriage to Ellis Brownlee, her friend, Louise Armstrong, goes house hunting for them and discovers a charming but neglected old stone cottage in the Cotswolds....

The tangled destinies of an unusual family are played out against the backdrop of the English countryside....

Antonia and her sister Louise grow up as thick as thieves, in a world apart from their detached parents....

Emily Dennistoun lives alone with her elderly tyrannical father at Borriston Hall on the Scottish coast....

Mrs Abbott is flustered at the thought of putting up a lady from the Red Cross, but is happily surprised when she turns out to be an old friend from her previous life as Miss Buncle, infamous writer....

One by one the characters of a large attractive family make their appearance but it is through Frederica that the nexus of family problems is finally resolved....

Married at 19, Katherine had four years of happiness with her beloved Gerald. When he dies, she is left on her own to bring up a stepson, Simon, and her own little twins....

Katherine Wentworth has married her hero, Alec Macfarlane....

Jane Fortune causes a stir when she arrives in the small community of Dingleford....

At short notice, Gerald Burleigh Brown is asked to take a deer-stalking holiday in place of his brother-in-law....

When Dinah was 19, Gilbert was a sort of fairy prince. She had loved him madly but gradually she had begun to realise that he was not quite so wonderful....

Charlotte Dean enjoys nothing more than the solitude of her London flat and the monotonous days of her work at a travel bookshop....

Since being widowed, Caroline Dering has been content to live her life solely for her children. Then the mysterious Robert Shepperton arrives in the village....

After spending time combatting terrorists in Malaya, James Dering returns to Scotland. He starts a new life at Mureth House, the home of his aunt and uncle, Mamie and Jock Johnstone....

Bel Lamington finds London a very lonely place - until a young artist literally drops in on her rooftop garden....

Young Frances Field arrives in a scenic coastal village in Scotland, having escaped her dreary life as an orphan. Once there, she encounters an array of eccentric locals, the occasional roar of enemy planes overhead and three army wives....