Hannah has done everything to make sure her life is safe and secure. A long way from her unstable childhood growing up in foster care, she’s content with her sweet, little, messy apartment and her satisfying job as a social worker. She quietly worries that, aged 36, she might never fall in love. But otherwise her life is where she wants it to be. Until, encouraged by her best friend to join a dating app, she meets Alex. He’s irresistibly handsome. He loves the same music as her. The same food as well. 

Clare is ready for a break. It's been a tough year and now she wants to put her feet up. Arriving at the Italian villa for their summer holiday, she decides it's high time her husband and his family did some of the work. After all, her husband owes her.... Now her brother-in-law Jamie has brought a wife, someone none of them have met before. Ella is everything Clare isn't. Glamorous. Young. Influential. But she knows a secret about Clare. Something that has the power to break the whole family apart.

Lucy has a kind and adoring husband, a job she loves as a teacher, and a house on Mulberry Avenue with floaty curtains and the softest bed linen. After her troubled childhood, she knows life will never be perfect, but it’s pretty close. She’s also got Amber, right next door. They never run out of things to talk about. Even if Amber’s life - with her high-profile job and handsome, wealthy boyfriend - is more glamorous than Lucy’s, they share a down-to-earth sense of humor. But then Amber starts to hint that her life isn’t all it seems....

Kat remembers the days when her only daughter Amy wouldn't leave her side. But now Amy is grown up and gone - to university in a town several hours away. Kat's house - which once felt too full, too noisy, too busy - is deathly quiet, and Kat awaits the daily phone call to tell her that her beloved daughter is thriving and happy. But one day Amy doesn’t call. Kat’s husband and friends think she is being paranoid. But Kat knows right away that something is very wrong.

It was supposed to be the happiest day of her life. Zoe was sitting in her hotel room, in her perfect white dress, looking forward to the moment when she would make kind, handsome Toby her husband. Then, there was a blank. They said she must have fainted, overcome with emotion. But nothing felt quite right afterward. Did something happen in that missing time? 

Naomi and I are best friends. School runs, dog walks, a shoulder to cry on over a glass of wine - we’re inseparable. But now my husband has walked out, I need her more than ever. I know she will help me pick up the pieces. Because she knows about the lie I told to protect her. She knows how much I’ve sacrificed for this friendship. And she’d never let anyone hurt me. Would she?

When single mother Darcy’s son falls from a rope bridge at a local playground, life stands still. She clutches his small, limp body, frozen, until a pair of strong hands push her aside, and she watches as George, a local doctor, saves her son’s life. George, with his twinkling hazel eyes, easy charm and lack of wedding band is almost too good to be true, but coffee becomes lunch, lunch becomes dinner, and soon they can’t go an evening without seeing each other.

Janey Markham is thrilled to be moving with her family to Buckingham Crescent, the smartest address in a desirable suburban town. Worried she’ll be excluded by the glossy local mothers, Janey is thrilled when she meets Tanya, the kind of woman she has always looked up to. Tanya takes Janey under her wing and her teenage daughter, Angel, is amazing with Janey’s little boy. As Janey and Tanya grow closer, Janey feels she can finally leave her troubled past behind.  

What was my sister doing standing over Florence’s cot in the middle of the night?I trust my sister, Carrie, with my daughter’s life. But then she’s accused of a terrible crime. Carrie lives under our roof, she pushes my daughter on the swings, she takes her out for ice cream. You might ask, why do I let her? Why would I risk my darling baby? How could I let my sister stay? Because I have a dangerous secret too. One that only Carrie knows about. And if that secret gets out, I could lose my little girl....

Thirty-two-year-old Jessica is newly divorced and has returned home to live with her parents whilst she puts the pieces of her life back together. But Jessica isn't the only one with problems, as her mother, Jean, has recently been diagnosed with dementia. Shortly after Jessica's arrival, one of the neighbours falls to her death, in what appears to be a terrible accident. However, Jean claims that the woman was murdered by her husband and that she witnessed the whole thing.

I know my daughter better than I know myself, and if there’s one thing I know for sure at this moment it's that Maisie is not okay. My ex-husband, Shaun, and I are still friends. We would do anything for our beautiful little girl, Maisie. But now Shaun has moved in with Joanne, and suddenly Maisie has a brand-new family. And there’s something not quite right about it.... I know Joanne isn’t everything she says she is. Yet no-one will listen. I need to discover what she’s hiding. Because if I don’t, my daughter will be in terrible danger. 

There's Bella, stay-at-home mum of Teddy. She suffered postpartum psychosis after Teddy's birth. There's Chrissy, divorce lawyer, married to Russell. They're having some problems with their sex life. There's Electra, mother to twins, who is struggling with her son's behaviour. There's Skye, a single mother, who used a sperm donor to have her baby. Then there's Jen. She was supposed to be a mother, but it hasn't worked out like she expected.

One hot summer night, 15-year-old Olivia comes home late from a party she was strictly forbidden from going to, and she and her mother, Hannah, start arguing. Soon Olivia speaks the words that every parent has heard from their teenage child.

Samantha Frayn doesn’t know why Peter Bridges picks her - a nobody with bitten fingernails and a troubled childhood behind her - but she falls quickly. He’s older, charming, likes fine wine and French films, and his beautiful home has real art on its walls. Peter transforms Samantha’s life in an instant. He sees the better version of herself - the one she’s always wanted to be. It’s only normal that there’s a little friction, when she moves in, over domestic matters like where things are kept, or the proper times to eat, sleep, and shower.

When Abby's doctor tells her she's two months pregnant, she doesn't believe him. She can't be - she hasn't had sex for over a year. But to her astonishment and dismay, multiple tests confirm it's true. Desperately searching for an explanation, Abby recalls New Year's Day - the terrible hangover, the hole in her memory where the night before should have been and the inexplicable sense of unease - and realises that this baby must have been conceived at her best friend Danny's NYE party.