The young Jane Austen wishes to be a writer. Her mother thinks otherwise. Although she is offered many marriage proposals she accepts none until the mischevious Thomas Lefroy shows up and turns her world around. At first she finds him ignorant and self centered but as she gets to know him, they start to flirt and eventually fall in love. Thomas' relatives disagree with the match and threaten to disinherit him if he marries her. Jane's mother also...

When Sarah Burton returns to her hometown as headmistress, she is full of ambition, determined to create a great school and to inspire her girls to take all they can from life. But in the aftermath of the First World War, the country is in depression and ideals are hard won. Lydia Holly, the scholarship girl from the shacks, is the most brilliant student Sarah has ever taught, but when her mother's health fails, her education must be sacrificed -...

It's 1939 and Europe teeters on the brink of war. Ten strangers are invited to Indian Island, an isolated rock near the Devon coast in southern England. Cut off from the mainland, with their generous hosts Mr and Mrs U.N. Owen mysteriously absent, they are each accused of a terrible crime. As each member of the party starts to die one by one, the survivors realize that one of them is a killer and start to turn on each other.

Tale of a long extended legal case and the havoc it wrecks in lives over various generations.