When the notorious Dick Turpin is hanged, Charley Feather is there watching and learning. At just fourteen years of age, apprentice highwayman Charley knows that betrayal is common and that a short, brutal life may come to a sudden end on the steps of the gallows.

Abandoned at birth, shunted from one 'foster mother' to another, streetwiise Charley trusts no one, especially when there are deep dark secrets to keep.

Winter is harsh for young Emily Bronte, her sisters Charlotte and Anne and their brother Branwell. Cooped up inside the bleak parsonage, the only break from routine comes when they write their adventures for the heroes of their secret worlds of Gondal and Angria - or when freedom loving Emily is able to escape onto the moor. Then one day, while out walking with her dog, Captain, Emily stumbles accross the mysterious outcast, Heslington, whose story of lost love binds her.

Emily resolves to help him out of his wretched situation... whatever the danger.

Mary Devereux, seamstress to Walter Raleigh, and later to ELizabeth I, works in the shadows at court, embroidering a precious cloak, ready for her master's visit to the Queen.

Each stitch carries Mary's dreams and longings, while silently she observes gossip, dark secrets, and - one fateful night - murder! A deadly traitor has infiltrated the court, and Mary's knowledge places her in the gravest of danger...

An original and chilling take on a memorable period of Elizabethan history.