When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her 'cousin' Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future.

For more than three hundred years, Bluff House has sat above Whiskey Beach, guarding its shore -- and its secrets. But to Eli Landon, it's home... A Boston lawyer, Eli has weathered an intense year of public scrutiny and police investigations after being accused of -- but never arrested for -- the murder of his soon-to-be-ex wife. He finds sanctuary at Bluff House, even though his beloved grandmother is in Boston recuperating from a nasty fall. Abra...

The servants at Longbourn estate -- only glancingly mentioned in Jane Austen's classic -- take centre stage in Jo Baker's lively, cunning new novel. Here are the Bennets as we have never known them: seen through the eyes of those scrubbing the floors, cooking the meals, emptying the chamber pots. Our heroine is Sarah, an orphaned housemaid beginning to chafe against the boundaries of her class. When the militia marches into town, a new footman arrives...

Grace Bradley went to work at Riverton House as a servant when she was just a girl, before the First World War. For years her life was inextricably tied up with the Hartford family, most particularly the two daughters, Hannah and Emmeline. In the summer of 1924, at a glittering society party held at the house, a young poet shot himself. The only witnesses were Hannah and Emmeline and only they--and Grace--know the truth. In 1999, when Grace is ninety-eight...

"Orphaned as children, Hennie and Lottie share an unbreakable friendship. Together, they suffered the horrors of orphanages and the workhouse, and now grown, they continue to rely on each other. When Lottie approaches Hennie about a possible position at a manor house, Hennie is eager to work alongside her dear friend. However, to secure the positions as stable hands, they will have to undergo a bold act of deception: the women must disguise themselves...

Poor and illiterate, Bhima had faithfully worked for the Dubash family, an upper-middle-class Parsi household, for more than twenty years. Yet after courageously speaking the truth about a heinous crime perpetrated against her own family, the devoted servant was cruelly fired. The sting of that dismissal was made more painful coming from Sera Dubash, the temperamental employer who had long been Bhima's only confidante. A woman who has endured despair...