It’s 1961, and Margo Hightower has just been hired as assistant to photographer Slim Aarons, who is famous for his vibrant pictures of high society, royalty and Hollywood stars. From the bright beaches of Acapulco to glitzy parties in New York, Margo is thrown headfirst into the glamorous jet-set world she so covets, observing its ways from behind the camera as Slim’s sidekick. But when they land in Palm Beach, a scene with few rules and many riches, the lines between work and play begin to blur. As Margo becomes swept up in the city’s social circle --- and into a friendship with heiress and rising fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer --- the golden life seems increasingly in reach. Until she finds herself entangled in a complicated web of loyalties and secrets that could bring it all crashing down.

1944, Rome. Newlywed Niki Novotná is recruited by a new American spy agency to establish a secret branch in Italy's capital. One of the OSS's few female operatives abroad and multilingual, she's tasked with crafting fake stories and distributing propaganda to lower the morale of enemy soldiers. Despite limited resources, Niki and a scrappy team of artists, forgers and others --- now nicknamed The Lipstick Bureau --- find success. But her work is also a way to escape devastating truths about the family she left behind in Czechoslovakia and a future with her controlling American husband. As the war drags on and the pressure intensifies, Niki begins to question the rules she's been instructed to follow, and a colleague unexpectedly captures her heart.

London, 1942. Still recovering from a devastating loss, Nancy Mitford is estranged from her husband and has given up her writing career. Eager for distraction and desperate for income, Nancy jumps at the chance to manage the Heywood Hill bookshop while the owner is away at war. But when a mysterious French officer insists that she has a story to tell, Nancy must decide if picking up the pen again and revealing all is worth the price she might be forced to pay. Eighty years later, Heywood Hill is abuzz with the hunt for a lost wartime manuscript written by Nancy Mitford. For one woman desperately in need of a change, the search will reveal not only a new side to Nancy, but an even more surprising link between the past and present.

In 1950, a young, beautiful Polish refugee arrives in Hyannisport, Massachusetts, to work as a maid for one of the wealthiest families in America. Alicia is at once dazzled by the large and charismatic family, in particular the oldest son, a rising politician named Jack. Alicia and Jack are soon engaged, but his domineering father forbids the marriage. And so, Alicia trades Hyannisport for Hollywood, and eventually Rome. She dates famous actors and athletes and royalty, including Gary Cooper, Kirk Douglas and Katharine Hepburn, all the while staying close with Jack. A decade after they meet, on the eve of Jack’s inauguration as the 35th President of the United States, the two must confront what they mean to each other.

For the first time in four years, physician Bess Codman visits Cliff House, the compound her great-grandparents built almost a century before. But due to erosion, the once-grand home will soon fall into the sea. It’s not just memories of her family home Bess must face, though, but also an old love that might hold new possibilities. In the midst of packing, Bess rediscovers the forgotten family guest book. Ruby, Bess’ grandmother and primary keeper of the book, always said Cliff House was a house of women, and by the very last day of the very last summer at Cliff House, Bess will understand the truth of her grandmother’s words in ways she never imagined.