In an attempt to make ends meet, he opens a matchmaking agency in his home village of Amour-Sur-Belle, whose feuding inhabitants subsequently find themselves on blind dates with each another.

It has been adapted for screen by Andrew Birkin, who wrote and directed The Cement Garden (based on the novel by Ian McEwan), for which he won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival.

Owner of the oldest tortoise in the world, Balthazar learns to love again by caring for the inhabitants of the Tower’s newly installed menagerie.

[7] The quirky Victorian mystery set in Hampton Court Palace tells of Mink, a headstrong Anglo-Indian princess, who sets out to save her maid from the hangman’s rope when the servant is suspected of poisoning the reviled Major-General Bagshot.

And when Maggie takes matters into her own hands, determined to keep the family together, the McBrides are soon at the centre of international commotion that will change everyone's lives forever.