There were two subjects which lonely widower Edward de Salis never discussed: his dead wife and his family home in Ireland, 'matchless Cashelmara'. So when he meets Marguerite, a bright young American with whom he can talk freely about both, he is able to love again and takes her back to Ireland as his wife. But Marguerite soon discovers that married life is not what she expected, and that she has married into a troubled family bitterly divided by love and hatred. Cashelmara becomes the curse of three generations as they play out their fates in a spellbinding drama, which moves inexorably towards murder and retribution.
The City of London in the 1990s is a dark, adrenaline- charged square mile deep in recession, where sex is just another commodity and keeping one's integrity is a daily struggle. Gavin Blake is riding high. He's up to his neck in money, sex and sleaze, but he's young, and handsome and he's making a lot of money. Carta Graham wants nothing more than to forget her life as a high- flying lawyer, so she's buried herself in a fund-raising project for the City Church of St Benet's. When she meets Gavin, she thinks the only thing they share is a temporary sexual attraction, but she's wrong. They are about to change each other's lives forever. For Gavin comes to see that in order to survive he must escape from the harrowing world he inhabits. His fight for freedom will be hard and fierce, but Carta, searching for her own freedom from the past, is with him every step of the way
When Alice, shy, dumpy, bored and unhappy with herself, wanders the City of London during her lunch hour, she stumbles without warning into a situation which will revolutionise her life. Brought up by a strict maiden aunt devoted to rationalism, Alice hardly foresees that she'll be drawn into the mysterious, seemingly irrational world of a healing centre based at a church, where chaos and moral breakdown is an ever-present threat to the off-beat but very human inhabitants who struggle to help others survive the maelstrom of modern life. There's Lewis, the irascible traditionalist, a priest of the old school who has problems dealing with women, homosexuals and the liberal spirit of the age; Rosalind, who appears so glamorous and successful but is in truth unhappy and unfulfilled; Francie, a woman who may or may not be deluded but who burns above all to be loved; Stacy, the naive young trainee searching for the right direction as he becomes increasingly lost; and finally Nicholas, the one-time shady wonder-worker now determined to stay honest - even as he finds himself drawn towards danger, damage and demoralisation.
We all want what we cannot have, but when Mark Castallack sees his longed-for inheritance Penmarric, a gothic mansion on the bleak cliffs of Cornwall, and the mysterious, mesmerising Janna, he knows that he will make them his and nothing will stand in his way. Yet when Mark realizes his dreams, Penmarric only brings a legacy of conflict, jealousy, infidelity and betrayal. Spanning the Victorian era to the Second World War, this gripping story of one man and his two feuding families chronicles the tempestuous clashes between warring sons, wives and mistresses, and between a house divided against itself.
