IRIS walked slowly to the front door of her Victorian villa in Fairley, a sleepy Sussex village. It had begun, she fumed silently – the “invasion” of her home. Of course, she’d been expecting it. Her

SARAH DITUM

MARIE peered out of the front room window, wondering if people would be on time. And not only that – what if nobody showed? She let the net curtain drop, listening to the kettle whistling in the kitch

GROWING up in a mansion house in Ireland, writer Gabrielle Mullarkey would drift off to sleep with the sheets pulled up to her eyes as nocturnal noises echoed through the old building. Often, the stai

Helen Harris always enjoyed her afternoon tea with Martha Evert, and as she knocked on the door carrying a treat of two chocolate muffins, she looked forward to an hour or two of catching up with her

CAMILLE gulped down her cup of coffee, snatched up her keys and hurriedly hauled back the living room curtains. It wasn’t like her to oversleep, and of course it had to be this morning, when she had a