Emma Woodhouse imagines that she dominates those around her in the small town of Highbury, but her inept matchmaking creates problems for herself and others.

A remote English village wakes on the morning after harvest, looking forward to enjoying a hard-earned day of rest and feasting. But two mysterious columns of smoke mar the sky, raising alarm and suspicion.

Exposed to fashionable society and romance--as well as clues about her mother--Lillian Haswell, brilliant daughter of a local apothecary, is torn when she is summoned back to her ailing father's bedside to save the family legacy at a time when women are forbidden to work as apothecaries and the suspicious eyes of a scholarly physician and a competing apothecary are upon her.

"Welcome to Chapel Croft. Five hundred years ago, eight protestant martyrs were burned at the stake here. Thirty years ago, two teenage girls disappeared without a trace. And two months ago, the vicar of the local parish killed himself. Reverend Jack Brooks, a single parent with a fourteen-year-old daughter and a heavy conscience, arrives in the village hoping to make a fresh start and find some peace. Instead, Jack finds a town mired in secrecy and...

"In the lean years following World War I, brash American adventuress Beryl Helliwell and prim and proper Brit Edwina Davenport form a private inquiry agency to make ends meet, hoping that crime does indeed pay . . . The latest occurrence to disturb the peace in the quaint English village of Walmsley Parva hits rather too close to home-in fact, the prime suspect has taken up residence in Edwina's potting shed. Her elderly gardener Simpkins has been...

"A series of anonymous accusations sent via post have set friend against friend and neighbor against neighbor. In her new position as magistrate, Edwina has already had to settle one dispute that led to fisticuffs. Even Beryl has received a poison pen letter, and while she finds its message preposterous and laughable, others are taking the missives to heart. Their headstrong housekeeper Beddoes is ready to resign and one villager has attempted to...

"In the depths of war, the members of one village's WI fight harder than ever to help the war effort. But behind closed doors each is fighting a more personal battle. Pat is still reeling from her own role in her abusive husband's death, and the new freedom before her is daunting. Sarah is struggling with the absence of her husband, stranded in a POW camp abroad, and trying her best to fill his treasured place in the village. Teresa is anxious about...

After arriving in the country to care for her injured great aunt, Rosie finds herself falling under the spell of the village and the people there, especially a mysterious, solitary man, Stephen, who's bitterly healing from an injury himself.

Rebecca has recently taken over as vicar of a rural English village. When her young daughter Grace goes missing, Rebecca must decide how much she is willing to sacrifice to rescue her daughter from the grip of evil.