Forbidden to walk because of his illness, Charles Fergusson is growing up a spoiled sickly child. He dreams of becoming a plant hunter, and of finding the fabled Blue Poppy which grew in his grandmother’s garden in Sikkim, but it seems that he will be trapped forever in the dark house in the Cumbrian fells.
That is until the feisty, disrespectful Betty comes back to work as a servant at Bambeck Hall. This fiery red-haired girl will turn Charles’s world upside down, forcing him to break away from his stultifying prison. But Charles and Betty have a secret history unknown to either of them.
Charles’s journey will lead him to the great Himalayas, but will he find the Blue Poppy and discover his true destiny?
That is until the feisty, disrespectful Betty comes back to work as a servant at Bambeck Hall. This fiery red-haired girl will turn Charles’s world upside down, forcing him to break away from his stultifying prison. But Charles and Betty have a secret history unknown to either of them.
Charles’s journey will lead him to the great Himalayas, but will he find the Blue Poppy and discover his true destiny?
It's 1935. Tamar Fell has no family - or so she's been told - and she relies on the friends she makes as she's dragged from lodging house to lodging house by her mother - the reckless, beautiful Sadie. Then Tamar meets Anna Weissmann, exiled from her own family by European politics, and they forge a friendship that will last through bereavement, failed love affairs, internment, betrayal, and the dislocations of war.
Bereaved biographer Alex Forbes goes to war-ravaged Croatia to research the life of celebrity artist Zenobia de Braganza and finds herself at the centre of a family conflict over a disputed inheritance. At the Kaštela Visoko Alex uncovers a mutilated photograph, stolen letters and a story of indeterminate gender, passion and betrayal. But can she believe what she is being told? In order to discover the truth about Zenobia, Alex travels to Istria, Venice, New York and London and, in working through the narrative of Zenobia’s life, Alex begins to make sense of her own and finds joy and love in a new relationship.
