S. E. Lynes

When city girl Shona moves with her partner Mikey and their baby to an idyllic cottage in rural Scotland, she believes that all that lies ahead for her family is happiness. But with Mikey working long hours away from home, the frightening isolation of the Scottish countryside begins to get to Shona.

You watch as he looks down into the stroller, at the beautiful blond-haired, blue-eyed baby kicking his little legs in the sunshine, whose innocent smile lights up your world. You see his face change. You know what he’s thinking. The next day he calls. He wants the truth....

She bursts into my life like a storm, and nothing is the same again. One by one, I watch as my friends fall under her spell. Only I see that her smiles don’t reach her cold eyes. And when I’m accused of things I didn’t do, when my home is vandalized, I know she’s behind it....

I thought my sister was happy. I thought what we all thought: that Annie and Dom led perfect lives in a lovely cottage in a quiet village by the sea, with flowers at the front gate and an apple tree in the garden. But I never saw Annie as she sat waiting for Dom well into the night....

Everyone is going to the housewarming party. Attending will be all the same people who lived on the street the day Abi vanished....

Rachel is afraid she may have done something terrible. She's sitting in a room, being asked whether she killed someone. She doesn't understand how her life has changed so completely. When she was younger, heads would turn when she walked into a room....

Thirty years ago, Nicola Watson lived with her parents and older brother in a respectable suburb. Now a successful lawyer in the city, with a life poles apart from her dark beginnings, Nicola has returned home for her mother’s funeral....

Samantha Frayn doesn’t know why Peter Bridges picks her - a nobody with bitten fingernails and a troubled childhood behind her - but she falls quickly. He’s older, charming, likes fine wine and French films, and his beautiful home has real art on its walls....

Pippa wants a second chance. Recently divorced and unhappy, she uproots her life to move to a beautiful farmhouse in the countryside. One night, a stranger arrives at her front door. Pippa invites him in and, in a moment of madness, makes him an offer she believes could change everything....

Fifteen-year-old Rosie lies in hospital fighting for her life. She’s trying to tell her mother what happened to her, but she can’t speak the words out loud....

Christopher would never hurt anyone. Not intentionally. Even after everything that’s happened, I still believe that....

I am on my way home, thinking only of the quiet, happy evening to come, when I see something completely impossible, and my heart stops dead. I would recognise those gorgeous pale blue eyes anywhere. It’s him. The high-school boyfriend I adored… Until the day he vanished without a trace.

This holiday is the first time my husband Jeff and I have been on our own in years, and I want it to be a fresh start. We can walk along the beach, eat ice cream in the bright Spanish sun, and fall in love again....

Last night, we celebrated our anniversary. Over candlelight, we talked about the children, our work, and I was so happy, and felt so loved. But the next morning, when I check my phone, there is a message. From a friend.