1926: Charlotte Crowninshield was born into one of the finest Boston society families. Now she’s on the run from a brutal husband, desperate to disappear into the wilds of the Southwest. Billie MacTavish is the oldest of nine children born to Scottish immigrants in Nebraska. She quit school in the sixth grade to help with her mother’s washing and mending business, but even that isn’t enough to keep the family afloat. Desperate, both women join the ranks of the Harvey Girls, waitresses who serve in America’s first hospitality chain on the Santa Fe railroad. Hired on the same day, they share three things: a room, a heartfelt dislike of each other…and each has a secret that will certainly get them fired. When they’re sent to work at the luxurious El Tovar hotel at the Grand Canyon, the challenges only grow.

When 58-year-old Helen Spencer reviews her life, what she sees are the mistakes. She can even pinpoint where it all started to go awry: a wonderous, romantic night in the woods her senior year of high school with a boy named Cal Crosby. A night she would soon work hard to forget. Forty years, one marriage, three children and one grandbaby later, suddenly there he is --- Cal Crosby! --- right in front of her with grandchildren of his own in tow. The chance to finally get some answers and sort out what happened is within reach. But Helen would much prefer to keep that night and all the fury, hurt and sorrow that followed tightly locked away where she doesn’t have to face it. Cal Crosby, however, is ready to talk. He has no idea of the can of worms he’s about to open. In fact, he doesn’t know the half of it.

On her own since the age of 18, Cass Macklin dated brilliant, troubled Ben McGreavy. They partied their way through their 20s, slowly descending into a bleak world of binge-drinking and broken promises. Now Ben is dead, and Cass is broke, homeless, scared…and pregnant. Determined to have a healthy pregnancy and raise Ben’s baby, Cass has to find a way to stop drinking and build a stable life for herself and her child. But with no money, skills, or sober friends or family, the task seems insurmountable. At wit’s end, Cass turns to the only person with the means to help her: Ben’s brother Scott, third baseman for the Boston Red Sox, a man with a temper and problems of his own. The two make a deal that neither one of them is sure they can live up to.

It’s July 1921, “flickers” are all the rage, and Irene Van Beck has just declared her own independence by jumping off a moving train to escape her fate in a traveling burlesque show. When her friends, fellow dancer Millie Martin and comedian Henry Weiss, leap after her, the trio finds their way to the bright lights of Hollywood with hopes of making it big in the burgeoning silent film industry. But success doesn’t come easy, and nothing can prepare Irene, Millie and Henry for the poverty, temptation and heartbreak that lie ahead. With their ambitions challenged by both the men above them and the prejudice surrounding them, their friendship is the only constant through desperate times, as each struggles to find their true calling in an uncertain world.

In 1919, the Turner sisters and their parents are barely scraping by. Their father is a low-paid boot-stitcher in Johnson City, New York, and the family is always one paycheck away from eviction. When their father’s hand is crushed and he can no longer work, their irrepressible mother decides that the vaudeville stage is their best --- and only --- chance for survival. Traveling by train from town to town, recent widow Nell and teenagers Gert, Winnie and Kit soon find a new kind of freedom in the company of performers who are as diverse as their acts. There is a seamier side to the business, however, and the young women face dangers and turns of fate they never could have anticipated.

Sean has spent 20 years in Third World war zones and natural disaster areas. But when burnout sets in, he is reluctantly drawn home to Belham, Massachusetts. There, he discovers that his steely aunt, overly dramatic sister and quirky nephew are having a little natural disaster of their own. When he reconnects with a woman from his past, Sean has to wonder if the bonds of love and loyalty might just rewrite his destiny.

As Dana Stellgarten enters the slipstream of post-divorce romance and is befriended by the town queen bee, Dana finds that the tension between being true to yourself and being liked doesn't end in middle school.

In the tradition of Marisa de los Santos and Anne Tyler comes a moving debut about a young mother's year of heartbreak, loss and forgiveness...and help that arrives from unexpected sources.