Miranda Lovage and her mother have a blazing row when Arabella tells her daughter that she can no longer afford their present lifestyle. Miranda goes to be angry and upset and is awoken at midnight by a strange sound, but when it is not repeated she goes back to sleep. When she awakes next morning, however, it is to find that her mother has disappeared.

1910. Sisters Mattie, Nell and Renie all managed to escape their oppressive and bullying father, but now separated, the girls must draw upon their strength and courage to build new lives for themselves.

East-End London, 1858. In London's twisting streets, it's hard to tell friend from foe. And for Katherine Martin, arriving back in London after years away, the city is far crueller than she remembers. Her eyes opened to the plight of London's poor, Kate is determined to do what she can to help - even if it means defying her parents. In secret, she opens a soup kitchen. But there is a world of criminals within London's poorest alleys. Catching the...

1850. When Opal Sharp finds herself and her younger siblings suddenly orphaned and destitute, she thinks things can get no worse. But soon three of them - including Opal - are struck down with the illness that took their father, and her brother Charlie is forced to make an impossible decision. Unable to afford a doctor, he knows the younger children will not survive. So, unbeknownst to Opal, Charlie takes their younger siblings to the workhouse. When...

At 16 Nancy leaves her small island for the mainland, the only member of her family to survive the Great Famine. Finding work in a grand house on the edge of Cork City, she feels irrepressibly drawn to the charismatic gardener Michael Egan, sparking a love affair that soon throws her into a fight for her life. In 1920, Nancy's son Jer has lived through battles of his own as a soldier in the Great War. Now drunk in a jail cell, he struggles to piece...

Holderness, 1846. For reliable, 13-year-old Bella, life isn't turning out quite as she'd hoped. She lives at the Woodman Inn an ancient hostelry run by her family in the Yorkshire countryside surrounded by two older brothers who never pull their weight and a flighty younger sister.

October 1943. Nancy Dalton, working at the RAF base at Scampton in Lincolnshire, has been holding vigil for the Lancaster bomber pilots whose missions seem endless. But her watchfulness has not prevented her own pilot brother from failing to return. In the midst of mourning him, fresh recruits arrive to continue the war effort, among them charismatic Canadian Steve Allard. The months ahead will be long and hard, with danger a constant companion, and...

It is the 1950s and as the Cazalets beloved matriarch, the Duchy, passes away, she takes with her the last remnants of a world of great houses and servants, of class and tradition in which the Cazalets have thrived. Louise, now divorced, becomes entangled in a painful affair, while Polly and Clary must balance marriage and motherhood with their own ideas and ambitions.

The Great War is over, and sisters Iris and Rose are adjusting to life in their modest Liverpool home after their brother Charlie has returned from the front. But when their mother sends Rose to the beautiful Welsh village of Tregarron to recover from an illness she discovers a new world of possibility at her feet.

In 1940s Hampshire the war is settling into its stride bringing dark days for many. Eighteen-year-old Connie Baxter works as an usherette at the Criterion Picture House in Gosport. Here she meets Queenie, who sells ice creams and dreams of being in the spotlight. As the war rages on, the women get to know each other and become firm friends, uniting against the wandering hands of the Criterion's creepy manager. But when Connie falls for the charming...