The Safe House

After what happened last Christmas, Jess Croft has decided this one is going to be good. Then a stranger turns up at Wrea Head Hall claiming to be the father she has not seen in years, with a small girl he says is Jess's sister, a child nobody had told her existed.

Jess does not want them there. She also cannot send them away once she understands what they are running from, and the hall stops being simply her home and becomes the only place this new family can safely be.

L.H. Stacey wrote this one as a Christmas thriller, originally published as The House of Christmas Secrets. Most of it turns on how much of the father's account Jess believes, and how long a house can be a hiding place.