On 2 June 1984 the British-registered tall ship Marques left Bermuda Harbour, cheered on by watching crowds. With other sailing vessels from across the world, the barque was heading for Halifax, Nova Scotia, having won the first leg of the internationally famous Tall Ships Race. As they sailed out to sea, there was not a cloud in the sky. But by midnight the weather had changed and the seas became violent.
Just 80 miles from Bermuda, things took a turn for the worse – the ship lurched and water poured in through the wide-open hatches. In 40 seconds the Marques had vanished. Of the 28 people on board, 19 were lost: crew and passengers, hailing from Britain, Canada, the US and the Caribbean. Among the missing was Shirley Cooklin’s 18-year-old son Ben.
Driven to seek answers, Shirley finds only dead ends and denials. She begins to wonder – what if this was not a freak accident caused by the wind? What if the tragedy was the result of a gross act of negligence? And why is the Thatcher government so interested in the incident?
Alone in her new house and haunted by old secrets, Sadie has felt adrift in LA – until a chance encounter with a magnetic stranger leads her to the most exclusive wellness class in the city.
At first she’s sceptical, but the group – and the attention of its leader, Lilith – is transformative… and completely addictive.
No one in Sadie’s life understands that Deep Flow isn’t a cult, but a community. Finally, a place where she might belong.
But when the sisterhood is jeopardised, Sadie’s desire to prove her loyalty becomes all-consuming, putting her carefully constructed life at risk.
What would she sacrifice to protect the secrets of her past?
Cast in a cult film at the age of eighteen, Jenny Evans was on the cusp of something extraordinary; a route out of her hometown, a future of promise. But the new world she was exploring crumbled around her when she was assaulted at a party by a high-profile figure.
Jenny reported this crime to the police when she became aware of other allegations of violence against The Famous Man. Shortly after doing so, details of what she had experienced were printed in a tabloid newspaper.
Jenny trained as a journalist herself to try to find out how this happened. In the aftermath of devastation, she picked up the pieces and fought back against the systems that caused her harm. Her investigation helped expose the jaw-dropping press abuse and police corruption we now call the ‘phone-hacking scandal’.
Now training as a lawyer, Jenny is still working to fight for justice in a system that so horrifically fails its victims.
After years of tension between a king and his people, in 1641 England reaches a semblance of peace. Armies have disbanded, legislation has passed to ensure Parliament will continue to sit, and the people are tentatively optimistic. Radical politicians congratulate themselves on a stunning political victory. Royal servants are coming to accept an altered future.
Then comes winter. With it, chaos, protests, political deadlock, and eventually a remarkable attempt by King Charles I to destroy his opponents. On 4 January 1642 Charles marches on the small riverside city of Westminster at the head of an army, seeking to arrest five Members of Parliament. In doing so, he sets in motion a series of events that will lead to bloodshed and war, changing a nation forever.
Two women. An extraordinary power. An explosive bond.
In a time of revolution, their fates will lie in the turn of a card . . .
It is the early days of the French Revolution and, on the streets of Paris, terror reigns.
Marie Anne Adelaide Lenormand is a young woman with an extraordinary power – through her tarot cards, she can commune with the dead, revolutionaries and the aristocracy alike seeking her out to divine their fortunes. Lenormand is loyal to Marie Antoinette and the dauphin of France, but she has seen the queen’s fate in the cards and must take care that it doesn’t become her own.
Then, one fateful day, she comes across Cait, a scullery maid from Ireland who has travelled to Paris for love. Cait has powers too – she can read people’s pasts as Lenormand reads their futures. The two young women share an electrifying connection, drawn to each other’s abilities. But Cait is hiding something. What will she do – and who will she betray – to bring revolution to the shores of her beloved Ireland too?
The king has been appointed by god to marry six queens. Those six queens are all that stand between the kingdom of Elben and ruin. Or so we have been told.
Each queen vies for attention. Clever, ambitious Boleyn is determined to be Henry’s favourite. And if she must incite a war to win Henry over? So be it.
Seymour acts as spy and assassin in a court teeming with dragons, backstabbing courtiers and strange magic. But when she and Boleyn become the unlikeliest of things – allies – the balance of power begins to shift. Together they will discover an ancient, rotting magic at Elben’s heart. A magic that their king will do anything to protect.
People at Synagogue say she is weird. A psychiatrist says she has Asperger’s. But Evie knows she is a witch. Leeds, England 1982. After the sudden death of her eccentric aunt Mim, Evie Edelman is left with a sizeable fortune, a yellow Alpine Sunbeam and a chihuahua named Peggy. Seizing her chance at independence, she escapes the claustrophobia of her parents’ house and the disapproval of her tight-knit Jewish community and moves to the country to practice her true calling: witchcraft. But trouble follows Evie in the form of her first-love Alex, and property developer Malcolm who just might be Satan himself. As Evie finds herself increasingly torn between magick and reality, and the past and present, rumours begin flying about what exactly a single young woman is doing in a remote village on her own. Soon, Evie starts to wonder whether she is always destined to be misunderstood – and if she will ever figure out who she truly is.
Isaac is Hannah’s entire world. If she lets her guard down, he will be taken from her.
When the Soundfield arrived twenty years ago, the world changed with it. Now, people are forced to live at night due to the deadly heat, food and water are scarce, and everyday life is punctuated by a constant and disconcerting hum.
Hannah spent her early career working on the enigma of the Soundfield, looking for answers; now, she focuses all her energy on keeping Isaac living, not just alive.
To do so, she will have to lie to the people she knows and hope she can trust the ones she doesn’t.
The only thing more dangerous than her lies, is the truth of what she has done.
Sylvie is only happy when she is at therapy. This is because Sylvie is in love with her therapist.
She wants to kiss her and roll around on the floor with her. She thinks about her every second they’re not together (roughly 167 hours and 10 minutes per week). Outside therapy, Sylvie has a quiet life: a job as a veterinary nurse, a tattoo artist friend and seaside walks with her brain-damaged dog, Curtains.
When her therapist delivers some devastating news, Sylvie finds she must imagine new and lasting ways of coping (that don’t include being adopted by the therapist). As her world begins to open up, Sylvie wonders, is she finally ready for a bravery of feeling?
Twenty years ago, during a family holiday on the savage and remote island of Little Auger, eleven-year-old Hazel left her bed and was never seen again. The unanswered questions surrounding Hazel’s disappearance tore three families apart and the girls left behind all experience their own terrible guilt. Roz, because she broke a promise; Catrin, because it was her idea; and Nina, who slept through it all. Their friendship never recovers and all three women go on to lead vastly different lives.
Twenty years later, they each receive a phone call from Stella Cox, a true-crime podcaster, who has unearthed new evidence about Hazel’s disappearance. There is no doubt Stella has found something important but the question is, how can the women—once best friends, now strangers—trust her, or each other?
Will their return to the island finally reveal the truth, and if it does, is it something any of them are prepared to learn?
