Domestic Home

Gemma Robinson comes into Elliot’s life like a whirlwind, and they marry and settle into his home. When she asks him if her parents can come to stay for a couple of weeks, he is keen to oblige - he just doesn’t quite know what he’s signing up for. The Robinsons arrive with Gemma’s sister, Chloe, a mysterious young woman who refuses to speak or leave her room.

Generations of dogs have been labeled training lemons for requiring actual motivation when all along they were perfectly normal. Numerous other completely and utterly normal dogs have been branded as canine misfits simply because they grew up to act like dogs. Barking, chewing, sniffing, licking, jumping up, and occasionally (just like people) having arguments are as normal and natural for dogs as wagging tails and burying bones.

Abi and Ben are driving home down foggy country roads, arguing about having had to cut short their weekend away. Abi’s driving and her eyes leave the road for a moment to say something to Ben, just as he gasps. A man is in front of the car, waving a torch. Abi swerves to avoid him. Ben tells her they should stop and go back, but Abi refuses. It’s dark, the roads are isolated and they don’t know this stranger. But as Abi turns the corner ahead of them, they see a broken down car. Every instinct is still telling Abi to drive on but then she sees the woman, holding a baby in a car seat.

Your child is missing. She was only six years old when she disappeared. Posters went up, the police investigated. But no one could find her. Now she’s home. And knocking at your door. You’re so happy to see her. But soon you start to wonder why she can’t answer your questions. Where has she been all this time? How did she find her way home? Who is she?

I’d stay in Ballyholme, Northern Ireland, to decide whether to forgive my cheating husband, Ryan. Ciara, my new best friend, would stay in our London home, free of charge, until I made up my mind. The ruse certainly had its plus points: Ciara’s unexpected appearance would freak Ryan out, and my disappearance should make him regret his roving eye. But now I learn Ciara has evidence…evidence that my husband has committed murder. And she’s no longer answering my texts and calls. Is it some sort of blackmail plot? More worrying, if Ryan is indeed a killer, could he strike again?

Single-mom Samantha moves with her daughter to a quiet village in the Peak District. The post as matron at Hallow Croft, now an exclusive residential home, seems to offer the escape she needs. But away from the TV room and afternoon activities, one of the residents is kept locked out of sight "for their own safety." And nobody will talk about the previous matron. She disappeared, leaving behind only a scuffed diary. Forty years ago, a girl was killed on the grounds of Hallow Croft Manor. Some people even say that began a curse on the home and the family who owned it.

What are the roots of radicalism? Journalist Carla Power came to this question well before the January 6, 2021, attack in Washington, DC, turned our country’s attention to the problem of domestic radicalization. Her entry point was a different wave of radical panic - the way populists and pundits encouraged us to see the young people who joined ISIS or other terrorist organizations as simple monsters. Power wanted to chip away at the stereotypes by focusing not on what these young people had done but why.

When the body of pregnant 15-year-old Hope Lacey is discovered in a churchyard on Christmas morning, the community is shocked, but unsurprised. For Hope lived in The Home, the residence of three young girls, whose violent and disturbing pasts have seen them cloistered away. As a police investigation gets underway, the lives of Hope, Lara and Annie are examined, and the staff who work at the home are interviewed, leading to shocking and distressing revelations...and clear evidence that someone is seeking revenge.

Hattie Gilby has not been back to her family home since the devastating events that took place there years ago. Events that changed Hattie and which continue to haunt her today. But one phone call changes everything. Now Hattie is going back to her family home to face her brothers, Adam and Luke and to hear the last words of her dying mother.

Valerie Park: nurse, widow, harassee of the president of her Homeowner’s Association. Holly Kent: president of the Homeowner’s Association, harasser of Valerie, all-around pain in the ass. Clementine Harrison: photographer, yoga teacher, free spirit, defender of harassed women. After selling everything she owns and road tripping across Canada in a converted school bus named Matilda, Clementine moves next door to Valerie. Valerie is depressed, scared, and lonely. And even though she doesn’t know it, she’s also the victim of a crime.

As two-income families find themselves ever more time-poor, many look to outsource to cleaners, nannies, and care workers. More and more, it would seem, people are finding themselves without either the emotional or the financial resources to take care of themselves and each other. The home, rather than an escape from the work and its pressures, is in fact an extension of it. After Work is a crucial corrective to this trend, extending its attention beyond paid jobs to the impact of domestic work upon familial relationships, social bonds, and our conceptions of domestic space.

I can’t contain my smile as we open the white screen door and step into our new home. Building a life with my amazing new husband Archie in this historic farmhouse is my dream come true. This is where we’ll grow old together, and where I can finally forget about my past. Or is it? First, it’s a light left on in the attic, and music playing when no one is home. Next, a faded photograph of me on a hazy summer day long ago, delivered in an unmarked envelope. After years of running, someone has finally found me. My new home, our safe haven, has been threatened.

Regan Peters knows her husband John wants to give her and their children a good life. The long hours he puts in as a financial advisor prove his dedication, and despite how mysterious he is about his past, that's been enough for her to get through the hard days. Until the FBI shows up at their door, and Regan learns that her husband has been running a Ponzi scheme, is mixed up with dangerous criminals, and has been living under an assumed identity all these years. Everything she thought she knew about her life has been a lie.

When we move into the exclusive Westford Park housing estate, we feel safe at last. More like a country club, it has everything we might need – beautiful houses with big gardens, a pool, a boating lake, extensive grounds. It’s also got 24/7 security. Our new neighbours are lovely too. We start to make friendships that feel like they could last a lifetime. It feels like nothing could possibly go wrong here. It’s like our secrets haven’t followed us here. Or that’s what we think at first…

Finally, Cath has met someone: a man she loves, Robin, and who adores her in return. And after years of managing fine on her own, running a successful business, raising her son and caring for her elderly mother, she feels she deserves some happiness. She expected everyone to be delighted for her. But her friends and family are suspicious of Robin. And Rebecca, a desperate single mother whom Cath has hired as a live-in housekeeper, doesn’t trust him either.

Julie Jones has left her suffocating marriage. With her teenage daughter, Jess, she’s starting over. Their new house in Oceanside is the first step toward a new life. Even if it does come with the unexpected. The previous owners, a pastor and his wife, have left something - or rather someone - behind. Tom Dean has a bitter hatred for the father who considers him a lost cause, and for the woman who’s moved into their family’s house. The only home he’s ever known. He’s never going to leave. She thinks he’ll be gone in three days, but Tom has the perfect plan.

What do the attacks in London Bridge, Manchester and Westminster have in common with those at the Charlie Hebdo offices, the Finsbury Park Mosque attack and multiple US shootings? They were all carried out by men with histories of domestic violence. Terrorism begins at home. Terrorism is seen as a special category of crime that has blinded us to the obvious - that it is, almost always, male violence. The extraordinary link between so many tragic recent attacks is that the perpetrators have practised in private before their public outbursts.

Anna James is an anxious mother. So when she has to leave 11-year-old Harrie home alone one evening, she can't stop worrying about her daughter. But nothing bad ever happens in the sleepy village of Barton St Martin. Except something goes wrong that night, and Anna returns to find Harrie with bruises she won't explain. The next morning, a local businessman is reported missing and the village is sparking with gossip.

Carly had thought they’d always live there. The beautiful Cornish cliffside house they’d taken on as a wreck, that Mark had obsessively redesigned and renovated - a project that had made him famous. It was where they’d raised their children, where they’d sat cozily on the sofa, watching storms raging over the sea below. It was where they’d promised to keep each other’s secrets. Until now. Because Mark has fallen in love. With someone he definitely shouldn’t have. Someone who isn’t Carly. And suddenly their family home doesn’t feel like so much of a safe haven.

When Dinah Brooke's second novel, Lord Jim at Home, was first published in 1973, it was described as "squalid and startling," "nastily horrific," and a "monstrous parody" of upper-middle class English life. It is the story of Giles Trenchard, who grows up isolated in an atmosphere of privilege and hidden violence; who goes to war, and returns; and then, one day—like the hero of Joseph Conrad's classic Lord Jim—commits an act that calls his past, his character, his whole world into question.