Liz MacMillan has wanted to be a nurse ever since her baby brother died of scarlet fever but her domineering father won't allow it. With the outbreak of war, nursing becomes a patriotic duty and Liz gets her chance, together with her new friend Helen Gallagher, whose large, Irish-Catholic family provides a striking contract to the constraint of the MacMillan household. Working in Glasgow's Western Infirmary, one of the other students, Mario Rossi, touches Liz's heart.

Endless years of a lonely, childless spinster’s life stretching ahead, Victoria Kavanagh finds an abandoned baby. She knows it’s the answer to her prayers. Or is it? Has she stolen him in a moment of madness? She’s come close to it before. Desperate to keep him, she creates a past of her own design and moves to Faredene, but is her new life far enough away from the past she’s trying to escape? What a framework on which to build - one of lies and deceit.

Edinburgh, Yuletide 1743, and Redcoat Captain Robert Catto would rather be anywhere else on earth than Scotland. Seconded back from the wars in Europe to command the city's town guard, he fears his covert mission to assess the strength of the Jacobite threat will force him to confront the past he tries so hard to forget. Christian Rankeillor, her surgeon-apothecary father, and his apprentice, Jamie Buchan of Balnamoon, are committed supporters of the Stuart Cause. They're hiding a Jacobite agent with a price on his head in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

Sunderland, 1940, and the women go to the shipyards to do their bit for the war effort. Polly never dreamed she would be able to work in the shipyards like the men in her family but times are tough and her new job ends up giving her more than she ever expected when she meets enigmatic dock diver Tommy Watts. During the day, head welder Rosie teaches her fledgling flock of trainees their new trade, but at night she hides a secret life. And mother hen Gloria signs up to escape her brutal husband, but finds she cannot run....

It's 1919 in Ashford-in-the-Water, Derbyshire. The Ryan family are adjusting to life in the aftermath of the First World War. Walter has returned home a broken man, and so it falls to his son, Josh, and daughter, Emily, to do their best to keep their family business as the village candle makers going. Josh and Emily are great friends with Thomas 'Trip' Trippet, whose father owns a cutlery manufacturing company in Sheffield, and Amy Clark, daughter of the local blacksmith.

It's 1938, and Cadi is chosen to be Rose Queen in the annual Rose Fete. She is thrilled to be treated like royalty for the day. But deep down she is desperate to leave the Welsh mining community where she grew up. When war is declared, Cadi and her best friend, Poppy, see a chance to escape. Cadi leaves behind her parents and local boy Aled, whom she is meant to marry, for Liverpool.

It is 1937, and Alice, Edith and Marg continue to face hardships every day, growing up on one of the poorest streets in Blackpool. Penniless, their friendship has helped them survive this far, but it'll take more than that to see them through the dark days ahead. Alice is coping with a violent father. Marg is left reeling after a dark secret about her birth comes to light and threatens to destroy the life she knows, and Edith is fighting to protect her alcoholic mother from the shame of their neighbours and keep her brother on the straight and narrow. 

On the outskirts of Nuneaton stands Hatters Hall, home to the mentally insane. One rainy, dismal day in 1857, Maria Mundy arrives there to work. She is ordered to care for Isabelle Montgomery, daughter of an influential land-owner, but it becomes apparent that she has been falsely imprisoned. It’s going to take courage, determination, and resolve - but freedom is always worth fighting for.

Lisa Logan was still a girl when she learned that it was a man's world... A man's world and no place for the weak.When her beloved father deserted them, she and her mother were left with nothing. Her mother could not cope with this new and harsh reality, but Lisa swore her revenge.

1910. Anna Garvey arrives in Caernoweth, Cornwall, with her daughter and a secret. Having come from Ireland to take up an inheritance of the local pub, she and her 18-year-old daughter, Mairead, are initially viewed with suspicion by the close-knit community. Anna soon becomes acquainted with Freya Penhaligon, a vulnerable girl struggling to keep her family business afloat in the wake of her grandmother's death, and starts to gain the trust of the locals.

The war changed everything for Lily Verner. As the Nazis storm Europe, Lily becomes an apprentice at her family’s silk-weaving factory. When they start to weave parachute silk there is no margin for error: one tiny fault could result in certain death for Allied soldiers. The war also brings Stefan to Lily: a German Jewish refugee who works on the looms. As their love grows, there are suspicions someone is tampering with the silk.

Anna Craven grew up captivated by stories of her mother's childhood in Birmingham and of Kate's friend, Olivia. Theirs was a magical friendship and Anna always regretted that, with Olivia's tragic death during the war, she would never meet the woman her mother loved so deeply. But when Kate dies, she leaves her daughter one final story: the whole truth of her life with Olivia Kemp. Anna is shocked to discover how little she really knew about the mother with whom she once felt so close.

A family pulled apart. A love silenced.... For as long as Briony Valentine can remember she has been soft on Eddie, the boy next door. But their chance of romance is stifled when the Luftwaffe begin dropping bombs on the midlands. Eddie is called up to serve, as is Briony's father, tearing her world apart. As the telegrams arrive, all she can do is pray.

Keara Michaels doesn't want to leave her family in Ireland, but fate sends her first to Lancashire, then across the sea to Australia, pregnant and penniless. And Theo Mullane, the man who loves her, is married, with an ailing baby son, so cannot follow her as he longs to. Mark Gibson leaves Lancashire to avoid marriage. But gold prospecting is a dangerous pursuit, and when his gentle young wife dies in childbirth, his father-in-law kidnaps the baby. So Mark runs away again, this time to Western Australia, where he employs Keara in his country inn.

When Sally, Beth, Margaret and Rachel meet at a job interview for the wonderful new store in Oxford Street, they have no idea they will become lifelong friends. When all four girls are lucky enough to be selected as sales staff their exciting new adventure begins. Join them as they overcome heartbreak and grief, find love and happiness and remain united in their friendship, whatever life throws at them.