Louisa Young Books in Order

Drawing on family diaries, Young explores the life of her grandmother Kathleen Scott, the sculptor often remembered chiefly as an Antarctic explorer's widow. Art, adventure, friendship and loss reveal a woman whose ambitions extended far beyond that role.

Former belly dancer Evangeline raises her dead sister's daughter and tries to live quietly after a devastating motorcycle crash. A call from the child's absent father draws her into police trouble and a criminal world connected to her sister's past.

An Egyptian boy's unexpected arrival disrupts Evangeline Gower's life and draws her back towards Cairo with his older brother. Caring for her niece while confronting old enemies, she must navigate renewed romance and unfinished business abroad.

Back in Britain, Evangeline Gower is sent to Egypt to trace an old adversary once again. Amid the dangers and attractions of Luxor, she must also choose between two very different men and the futures they represent.

Young traces the heart's changing meanings through medicine, religion, art and romance. From ancient accounts and sacred symbols to surgery and popular culture, she explores how a physical organ became a central image of human feeling.

The First World War separates working-class Riley and his privileged sweetheart Nadine while reshaping the marriage of his commanding officer. A terrible injury tests both couples as they confront the distance between survival and returning to ordinary life.

After the armistice, Riley and Nadine struggle to begin married life under the weight of his injuries. Nearby, Peter retreats into drink and isolation, leaving both couples to discover whether love can survive war's continuing damage.

As Europe moves towards another war, Tom falls for his Italian cousin Nenna, whose father supports Mussolini. Across Rome and London, families scarred by the First World War must confront new conflicts of love, loyalty and political belief.

A woman looks back on lovers whose possessiveness and cruelty resembled a supposedly romantic literary hero. Her memories challenge the appeal of the Heathcliff figure by exposing the harm hidden behind declarations of passionate love.

Young recounts her decades-long relationship with composer Robert Lockhart, whom she first met as a teenager. Their love story becomes an account of alcoholism's destructive reach and the struggle to care for someone without being consumed by his illness.

Two recently bereaved people struggle to continue without their partners, unaware the dead are still beside them. When the ghosts attempt to bring the survivors together, all four must reconsider love, loyalty and the possibility of happiness after loss.