Books. Wine. Secrets. You'll find them all in the Cotswolds, the perfect retreat for a stressed-out teacher. Lucy has found just the right cottage for a bargain rent. All she has to do is keep an eye on Bunty, her extremely feisty ninety-something neighbour. With her West Highland terrier Hamish at her side, Lucy plans to relax and read up on the women of nearby Bletchley Park, but the villagers of Little Maudley have other ideas, and Lucy finds herself caught up in the campaign to turn a dilapidated telephone box into a volunteer-run library. Along the way she makes friends with treehouse designer Sam, and finds herself falling for the charms of village life. And it seems Bunty has a special connection to Bletchley and the telephone box, one that she's kept secret for decades. Brave, wise, this is a wonderfully warm read. 391pp with fairly large print. Paperback.

Set in London 1960 and the lives of teenage twins Maisy and Duncan change for ever the night their mother is taken into an asylum. Sent to live in the New Forest with their cold-hearted grandmother, Mrs Mitcham, the children feel unloved and abandoned. At least they have each other, but one day Duncan doesn't come home from exploring in the forest and no one, least of all his grandmother, seems to care about his disappearance. The police who have found the bodies of other missing boys offer little hope of finding Duncan alive. Yet Maisy refuses to give up. Although she doesn't know the woods well, she knows someone who does, the strange old woman who lives at their heart. Does Maisy dare enlist the help of the woman in the wood? The Sunday Times bestselling author provides a narrative that gallops along in a glorious and heartwarming story of a girl who at just 15 was determined to find the truth. 398pp, Penguin paperback.

Pop Larkin, junk-dealer, family man and Dragon's Blood connoisseur, manages to sell a nearby crumbling country home to city dwellers Mr and Mrs Jerebohm for a pretty bundle of notes. Now he can build his daughter Mariette the pool she has long been nagging him for. But the Larkins' new neighbours aren't quite so accepting of country ways, especially Pop's little eccentricities. In fact, it's not long before an accident in a wobbly boat becomes an incident, and Pop finds himself up before a magistrate. 'Pop is as sexy, genial, generous, and boozy as ever. Ma is a worthy match for him in all these qualities.' - The Times. 121 page Penguin paperback.

Coronation Day, 1953 and in a sleepy Somerset village, young shopkeeper Molly Heywood makes a terrible discovery - her friend Cassie has been murdered, and her six-year-old daughter Petal is missing. Weeks pass but the police make no progress, so Molly, against the advice of a childhood friend and village policeman George, takes matters into her own hands. Clutching a letter sent from Cassie to London, she leaves in search of Petal. In the Blitz-scarred East End, Mollies meets and befriends strangers from Cassie's past, but the big city is a dangerous place for a country girl, especially one on the trail of a murderer. Sacrificing home, happiness and a chance at love to find Petal, is Mollie now risking her life? An epic romantic drama set in post-war London. 423pp, Penguin paperback.

Brought up in a suffocating, emotionless home in the north of England, Clara finds freedom when she wins a scholarship and moves to London. There she meets Clelia and the rest of the brilliant and charming Denham family. They dazzle Clara with their gift for life, and she longs to be part of their bohemian world, but while she will do anything to join their circle, she gives no thought to the chaos that she might cause. Choosing languages at London University rather than science, young Clara has a romantic dalliance in Paris. 244pp, paperback.

Simon Camish is an unhappily married successful barrister who meets Rose Vassiliou at a dinner party given by friends in their London home. Rose has been made a ward of court by her wealthy parents in order to prevent her from marrying Christopher Vassiliou, a young Greek whose parents are considered unsuitable and who is only interested in Rose for her money. Now separated from her Greek husband, Rose lives alone with her three children and despite all the efforts and sneers of her friends, she refuses to move from her crumbling house in a decaying neighbourhood to which she has become attached. Simon becomes attracted to this woman of remarkable integrity and courage and unexpectedly meets Christopher Vassiliou at a drinks party and they fall into conversation. Simon starts to doubt whether Rose is being entirely honest with him. The novel explores the themes of identity, idealism, ambition, responsibility and personal morality in late 1960s London. 482pp, paperback.

It is 1979 and three old Cambridge friends are brought together at a party to celebrate New Year's Eve and the end of a decade. Esther, Liz and Alix first met in Cambridge in the early Fifties, a time when their futures held glittering promise, but with the dawn of the Thatcher era, everything changed. Now middle-aged, how will these confident women cope with the personal and professional challenges they will come to face? With Drabble's trademark vivid descriptions, subtle asides and sly comments, we enter a world of the wealthy, the successful in the media, academia, politics and medicine in the late 70s and early 80s. 504pp, paperback.

A gripping story of sibling rivalry. Louise, beautiful and sophisticated, marries wealthy novelist Stephen Halifax. Sarah, recently graduated from Oxford, is thrown back into family matters. Louise's life becomes one of parties, gossip columns and glamour. Sarah, now living in London, begins to discover a newfound freedom, only glimpsing her sister's fashionable life, but as rumours of infidelity in Louise's marriage surface, Sarah finds that her sister, beneath her cool exterior, may not be the woman she thought she was. One wonders if Margaret Drabble bases any of this on herself, since she is the younger sister of the novelist A. S. Byatt. First published in 1963, another well written contemporary picture of young women's lives. 213pp, paperback.

Set consists of The Needle's Eye, Radiant Way, Jerusalem the Golden, Summer Bird-Cage, Peppered Moth and Millstone. Buy all six paperbacks and save even more.

Set contains Nineteen Minutes, A Spark of Light and Leaving Time. Buy all three paperbacks and save even more.