One very ordinary day, Maya Flowers sees a new commuter board her train. Maya knows immediately and irrevocably that he is 'the one'. But the beautiful man on the train always has his head in a book and never seems to notice Maya. Eventually she plucks up the courage to give the stranger a note asking him out for a drink. And so begins a story of missed opportunities and finding happiness where you least expect it.

Newlywed Jade Westmore has finally found her forever in husband Wells, a charming, successful, and recently divorced architect—only there’s one caveat: behind the gates of their elysian estate, hidden from street view in the caretaker’s cottage … lives Wells’s first wife, Sylvie. Three years ago, the original Mrs. Westmore suffered a nervous breakdown—and hasn’t uttered a sound since. Not a physician, psychologist, or world-renown specialist has been able to elicit so much as a word from the silent woman … until now.

Pulling a batch of my husband’s favorite golden oatmeal cookies from the oven, I smile to hear my daughter Phoebe playing in the treehouse outside. I was once so close to losing everything, but since I married handsome Jackson, I have a perfect life. Jackson might tell me what to wear, but he just likes to buy me nice things. He says I don’t need a job, and why would I want one? I can spend all day taking care of Phoebe and running errands in the fancy car Jackson gave me—he knows everywhere I go. But my whole world shatters when I find out Jackson is a liar.

Elle has the perfect life. A hard-working husband, a clever little boy, and a gorgeous home in a quaint neighbourhood. Jen also has the perfect life. A passionate relationship with a doting husband, a creative little girl, and an exciting career. When a strange coincidence throws them together, they become close friends. But then they uncover a shocking truth: they share the same husband.

Sisters Laura and Penny were once close, bonded together after the early death of their mother. Laura always had her younger sister’s back until one day everything changed and Penny disappeared. Twenty years later Laura finds herself alone and at a crossroad in her life; questioning her marriage and her future. Meanwhile Penny has spent her whole life running away from her problems until one day she is forced to stop and face the shocking truth. When Penny turns up on Laura’s doorstep late one stormy night, Laura is immediately suspicious of her sister’s motives.

When Hannah met David, it was love at first sight. They were married quickly, but she knew it was the right choice. They're always laughing, the passion is unmatched, and they want the same things. Most of all, they both want a family. For David, it's doubly important. He tragically lost his first wife, Katherine, several years before. Hannah is, he says, the person who saved him from his grief. Although his friends worried he was moving on too fast, and Hannah sometimes still feels a strange jealousy towards his first wife, deep down she knows she's meant to be his happily-ever-after.

Tress Walker waved her perfect husband Max off to work, with no idea that she was about to go into labour with their first child. And completely unaware that when she tried to track Max down, he wouldn’t be where he was supposed to be. At the same time, Max’s best friend Noah Clark said goodbye to his wife, Anya, blissfully oblivious that he would soon discover the woman he adored had been lying to him for years. And living alongside the two couples, their recently widowed friend, Nancy Jenkins, is getting ready to meet Eddie, her first true love at a school reunion.

On a summer evening in 1931, Lilly Blackwood glimpses circus lights from the grimy window of her attic bedroom. Lilly isn't allowed to explore the meadows around Blackwood Manor. She's never even ventured beyond her narrow room. Momma insists it's for Lilly's own protection, that people would be afraid if they saw her. But on this unforgettable night, Lilly is taken outside for the first time - and sold to the circus sideshow.

In a windswept British seaside town, single mum Alice Lake finds a man sitting on the beach outside her house. He has no name and no idea how he got there. Against her better judgment, she invites him inside. Meanwhile, in a suburb of London, 21-year-old Lily Monrose has been married for only three weeks. When her husband fails to come home from work one night, she is left alone in a place where she knows no one and with the police telling her that her husband never existed.

Mabel Beaumont’s husband Arthur loved lists. He’d leave them for her everywhere. ‘Remember: eggs, butter, sugar’. ‘I love you: today, tomorrow, always’. But now Arthur is gone. He died: softly, gently, not making a fuss. But he’s still left her a list. This one has just one item on it though: ‘Find D’. Mabel feels sure she knows what it means. She must track down her best friend Dot, who she hasn’t seen since the fateful day she left more than sixty years ago.

Laurie is sure love at first sight doesn't exist anywhere but the movies. But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man who she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there's a moment of pure magic...and then her bus drives away. Certain they're fated to find each other again, Laurie spends a year scanning every bus stop and cafe in London for him. But she doesn't find him, not when it matters anyway. Instead they "reunite" at a Christmas party, when her best friend, Sarah, giddily introduces her new boyfriend: the man from the bus.

Melville Heights is one of the nicest neighborhoods in Bristol, England. It’s the sort of place where doctors and lawyers and old-money academics live. It’s not the sort of place where people get stabbed in the back 30 times with a kitchen knife in their own homes. Someone must have seen something. Newlywed Joey Mullen, for example, recently returned from four years of working in Ibiza. She and her husband, Alfie, are eager to find a place of their own in her hometown. But Joey finds herself distracted by the man next door, Tom Fitzwilliam.

In the early hours of a summer morning, a young woman steps into the path of an oncoming bus. A tragic accident? Or suicide? At the center of this puzzle is Adrian Wolfe, a successful architect and grief-stricken widower, who, a year after his third wife's death, begins to investigate the cause. As Adrian looks back on their brief but seemingly happy marriage, disturbing secrets begin to surface. The divorces from his two previous wives had been amicable, or so it seemed; his children, all five of them, were resilient as ever, or so he thought.

Years after an Easter weekend tragedy devastates a family, they return to the house they grew up in to unearth the many secrets hidden within the nooks and crannies of home.

Lydia, Dean, and Robyn live very different lives, but each of them, independently, has always felt that something was missing. What they don't know is that a letter is about to arrive that will turn their lives upside down. It's a letter containing a secret - one that will bind them together and show them what love and family and friendship really mean.