Cirrus@Austlit

'Fleeing Melbourne for a village in the Yorkshire Dales had felt right. Sanctuary, I’d thought.

'But nowhere is as straightforward as it first appears.

'When Giselle flees to the north Yorkshire village of Hollydale, she doesn’t give much thought to what she might find there. She's more concerned with what she's leaving behind – a toxic marriage, the loss of her beloved sister, Lina, and the cloud of suspicion over the circumstances of Lina's death.

'But in this small community she makes new and fascinating friends, chief among them Margaret, a wealthy elderly local who lives in Chatswood Hall, the mansion perched on a hill above the village, and Tom, the local handyman. Giselle hopes to start life over, but the past cannot be outrun and her husband will not be cut loose, threatening to arrive in Hollydale at any moment.

'When a bomb explodes on the one road that leads to her cottage, Giselle realises that her Hollydale life is larger and more complicated than she’d understood.

'A story about intergenerational friendship between women, coercive relationships and power, and the endless possibilities new connections can bring'  (Publication summary)

'One bad decision can tear your world apart . . .

'December 1974. Abby Campbell and her brother Charlie are driving to their father's farm on a dark country road when they swerve into the path of another car, forcing it into a tree. The pregnant driver is killed instantly.

'In the heat of the moment, Abby and Charlie make a fateful decision. They flee, hoping heavy rain will erase the fact they were there. They both have too much to lose.

'But they have no idea who they've just killed or how many lives will be affected by her death. Soon the truth is like a riptide they can't escape, as their terrible secret pulls them down deeper by the day.'   (Publication summary)

'In 1913, on a summer’s day at Half Moon Lake, Louisiana, four-year-old Sonny Davenport walks into the woods and never returns.

'The boy’s mysterious disappearance from the family’s lake house makes front-page news in their home town of Opelousas. John Henry and Mary Davenport are wealthy and influential, and will do anything to find their son. For two years, the Davenports search across the South, offer increasingly large rewards and struggle not to give in to despair.

'Then, at the moment when all hope seems lost, the boy is found in the company of a tramp.

'But is he truly Sonny Davenport? The circumstances of his discovery raise more questions than answers. And when Grace Mill, an unwed farm worker, travels from Alabama to lay claim to the child, newspapers, townsfolk, even the Davenports’ own friends, take sides.

'As the tramp’s kidnapping trial begins, and two desperate mothers fight for ownership of the boy, the people of Opelousas discover that truth is more complicated than they’d ever dreamed...'

Source: Publisher's blurb.