This is the city in which everything is simultaneous. There is no yesterday, nor tomorrow, merely weather, and decay, and construction. In London's changing heartland, architect Matthew Halland can't help but contemplate how the past and the present blend. It stirs memories of his boyhood, the early years with his daughter, and the failed marriage he has not yet put behind him. Here, too, is the London of prehistory, of Georgian elegance, of the...

All Alison ever wanted was a blissful childhood for her six children, with summers at the beach and birthday parties on the lawn at their family home. Together with Ingrid, the family au pair, she has worked hard to create a real old-fashioned family life. But beneath its postcard sheen, the picture is clouded by a distant father, Alison's inexplicable emotional outbursts, and long-repressed secrets that no one dares mention.