COUSINS

APHRODITE'S HAT

The stories in this collection deal with the psychological aspects of love - love given and withheld, love craved and lost, and love met and disappointed. Psychologically acute, sharply written in lucid and witty prose, these stories, set in Venice, Greece and Rome, take us into the complex geography of the human heart.

THE BOY WHO COULD SEE DEATH

Eli is an ordinary boy with an extraordinary gift. It will shape the course of his whole life but, he learns the hard way, he must keep it hidden from those who know him best. Seeing death is a mixed blessing..

THE CLEANER OF CHARTRES

There is something special about the ancient cathedral in Chartres, and there is something special too about Agnès Morel, the mysterious woman who is to be found cleaning it each morning. The young woman brings healing to the town, only to find her own redemption among its community of lost souls.

DANCING BACKWARDS

Violet Hetherington has taken the rash step of joining a transatlantic cruise ship to New York to visit Edwin, an old friend. As she makes the six day crossing, she relives the traumatic events that led to her losing Edwin's friendship, and abandoning her career as a poet, for the safety of marriage and domesticity.

THE GARDENER

Artist, Hassie Day and her sister, Margot, buy a rambling, run-down Jacobean house in Hope Wenlock on the Welsh Marches. While Margot continues her London life in high finance, Hassie is left alone to work the large, long-neglected garden. She is befriended by eccentric, sharp-tongued Miss Foot, who recommends Murat, an Albanian migrant, out of place in the village, to help Hassie in the garden. As Hassie works in the garden alongside Murat, she begins to ruminate on her past life, her hostile mother, her diffident father and the sibling rivalry that tainted her childhood. Most of all, she begins to analyse the love affair that ended leaving her with painful, unanswered questions. In Murat's peaceful company, she discovers resemblances between her plight and his, and as she works the garden and walks in the mysterious ancient nearby wood, she begins to explore the history of the house and its former lands, and old hurts fade as she experiences the healing power of nature and learns of other, hidden worlds.

GRANDMOTHERS

A wonderful story about four very different grandmothers - Blanche, who can't seem to stop stealing things from the local pharmacy; Minna, who just wants a quiet life in her shepherd's hut, though the local children have other ideas; Cherry, who's adjusting to life in a care home; and Nan, whose favourite occupation is researching funerals - whose lives and grandchildren become unexpectedly entangled.

INSTANCES OF THE NUMBER 3

When Peter Hansome dies in a car crash he leaves behind a wife, Bridget, and a mistress, Frances. The lovers' triangle which emerges is just one of many triangles which occured in Peter's life and relationships.

THE LIBRARIAN

Sylvia Blackwell, a young woman in her twenties, moves to East Mole, a quaint market town in middle England, to start a new job as a children's librarian. But the apparently pleasant town is not all it seems. Sylvia falls in love with an older man - and her connection to his precocious young daughter and her neighbours' son will change her life and put them, the library and her job under threat.

MISS GARNET'S ANGEL

Julia Garnet, a recently retired teacher, uses a legacy to rent an apartment in Venice over the winter. Her normal caution and reserve are overwhelmed by the beauty of the place and she comes to life.

MR GOLIGHTLY'S HOLIDAY

Mr Golightly, a rumpled elderly man, moves into a cottage in Great Calne. He is the author of a once famous work, now tending to be overlooked. He had meant to use his holiday to rewrite his opus as a soap opera, but he is gradually drawn into the problems of the village people.

THE OTHER SIDE OF YOU

Psychiatrist, David McBride, is unusually drawn to death having witnessed the death of his six-year-old brother as a child. He finds himself intrigued by a patient, a failed suicide, whose tale unfolds in this story on the theme of redemption through love and art.