All at sea

So, what do you think we should get Elsie this year? She’ll be a hundred and one next Saturday.” Jemma beckoned her husband over to her laptop where ‘Granny Gifts’ ranging from bird baths to potted ja

IT had been a long, hard drive. Frances had left early, hoping to get away before the rush hour – only to discover that the rush hour started earlier still. She stopped for a break further south than

I’D seen an advertisement in my father’s newspaper for women to work on the canal boats. It said applicants should be of a robust constitution. I’m quite robust, so why not? I’d give it a go. “Look, D

LATE one night, when all customers had left the Mermaid Tavern, Morwenna was washing the used tankards. There hadn’t been that many customers that night, which was often a sign that people were engage

THE last specks of rain of the previous night’s storm pattered against the widow of the drawing-room. Meryl Stewart sat at the keyboard of her baby grand, working her way through the piano arrangement

Words can be all-powerful, as these three couples discovered. They reveal the romantic and unusual ways books brought them together…