AT THE EDGE OF THE ORCHARD

BURNING BRIGHT

In 1792 the Kellaway family move from Dorset to London, a city jittery about the bloody French Revolution. The youngest boy, Jem, becomes friendly with streetwise Maggie Butterfield. The friendship changes when they become involved with a neighbour, the poet and radical, William Blake.

FALLING ANGELS

The Waterhouses, a traditional victorian family, first meet the progressive Colemans in 1901 when they visit neighbouring graves in a fashionable cemetery. To their mutual distaste their lives are linked when their daughters become friends.

GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING

Set in seventeenth century Delft, a young woman becomes a servant in the home of the enigmatic painter Vermeer. Servant and master become increasingly intimate which throws the whole household into turmoil!

THE LADY AND THE UNICORN

Nicolas des Innocents is commissioned by nobleman Jean Le Viste to design a series of tapestries for his Great Hall. While Nicolas is surveying the hall he meets Le Viste's beautiful daughter. Any relationship is forbidden, so the only avenue of expression for their passion is the creation of the magnificent tapestries.

THE LAST RUNAWAY

Honor Bright is a sheltered Quaker who has rarely ventured out of 1850s Dorset when she impulsively emigrates to America. Opposed to the slavery that defines and divides the country, she finds her principles tested to the limit when a runaway slave appears at the farm of her new family. Richard & Judy Bookclub

REMARKABLE CREATURES

On a windswept English beach in the early 19th century, two women make discoveries that change the world, and in doing so find friendship, pride - and trouble. Fossil-hunter Mary Anning sets the scientific world alight, challenging ideas about the world's creation and stimulating debate over our origins.

A SINGLE THREAD

It is 1932, and after the First World War, Violet Speedwell, mourning for her fiancé, resolves to escape her suffocating mother and strike out alone. A new life awaits her in Winchester, where she falls in with the broderers, a group of women charged with embroidering kneelers for the Cathedral, and is soon entwined in their lives and their secrets. As the threat of a second Great War looms, Violet collects a few secrets of her own that could just change everything…

THE VIRGIN BLUE

When Ella Turner moves to France, she has time on her hands. She decides to look into the history of her family, particularly the tragic life of Isabelle, who lived in the sixteenth century.