Steph Harper is on the run. When she was five, her mother fled an abusive husband --- with Steph and her younger sister in tow --- to Cherokee Nation, where she hoped they might finally belong. In response, Steph sets her sights as far away from Oklahoma as she can get, vowing that she will let nothing get in the way of pursuing the rigorous physical and academic training she knows she will need to be accepted by NASA, and ultimately, to go to the moon. Spanning three decades and several continents, TO THE MOON AND BACK encompasses Steph’s turbulent journey, along with the multifaceted and intertwined lives of the three women closest to her.

In the gritty East Village of 1970s New York, Ivan and his best friend, Eddie, a popular local bartender, are dabbling in drugs following a short tour of Europe. One night, as Ivan and Eddie experiment with heroin, things go horribly wrong. In a panic, Ivan rushes Eddie to a crowded local ER and, believing his friend is about to die, makes the awful choice to leave him there. This one act of abandonment haunts Ivan his entire life. He keeps this secret from his friends and later his family, forever searching for mercy from "a remorse that never dies." Ivan's decision also ripples across time through an extended community, affecting a host of other people unknowingly connected to that night.

Two years ago, Hayley Stone lost everything. First, her parents died in a devastating fire. Then, her sister overdosed, leaving Hayley alone and hounded by a media circus that turned her family’s tragedy into tabloid fodder. When her new husband suggests a fresh start in the Adirondacks, the promise of anonymity in an isolated mountain town feels like salvation. But the mountains hold darker secrets than she ever imagined. Her once-loving husband grows distant and volatile. The widow down the road keeps spewing vague accusations. Not even their new friends can help her shake the creeping sense that something is off. As winter edges closer, Hayley discovers that her sanctuary is anything but safe. In trying to escape her past, she may have run straight into something far more dangerous.

On a spring evening in Montana, Brian Buckbee encounters an injured baby pigeon. Heartbroken after the loss of the love of his life and increasingly isolated by a mysterious illness that overtook him while trekking through Asia, Brian is unaware that this bird --- who he names Two-Step --- will change his life. Brian takes in Two-Step and more injured birds, eventually transforming his home into a madcap bird rehabilitation and rescue center. As Brian and Two-Step grow closer, an unexpected kinship forms. But their paths won’t converge forever. As Two-Step heals and finds love, Brian’s condition worsens, and with his friend’s release back into the world looming closer, Brian must decide where this story leaves him.

Margot Wayward is in manically gleeful self-destruct mode. Following the implosion of a 10-year relationship, she’s willfully derailing her successful career, joyfully taking down men on dating apps, and living in total chaos. Until one day, when Margot has a vision of herself with a man she’s never met before. She doesn’t believe in fate. But when Margot meets single-dad Henry, the vision comes true: exactly as she’d foreseen it. As her future continues to reveal itself, a glimpse at a time, Margot realizes she knows exactly what’s going to happen, and when. And there’s nothing she can do to change any of it. So Margot has to decide how to live, how to love again, and how to be herself. Because if you can’t change your destiny, how on earth do you live your present?

Janavi is a wonderfully independent, young modern Indian woman. Sagar is a trained hydraulic engineer, and his parents were never able to forgive him for an unspeakable act from his past. Yet the two are forced together into an arranged marriage that neither of them wants. Even worse, Sagar has already accepted a job in America, in a strange place called Montana, where he will be in charge of dismantling a dam. His white colleagues do not welcome him with open arms, and Janavi finds herself unable to forgive her sister back in India, whose betrayal led her to this marriage and this strange place. When a colleague of Sagar's is found drowned, Sagar is the obvious scapegoat. But is this death one in a long history of people of color paying the price for the white man's arrogance and expansionism?

Two Black writers are trying to find peace and belonging in a world that is riven with gun violence. One is on a global book tour after a big prize win; the other is set to give a speech at a school that has suffered a shooting. As their two storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure: characters drink booze out of an award trophy; menaces lurk in the shadows; tiny French cars putter around the countryside; handguns seem to hover in the air; and dreams endure against all odds.

Reeling from a breakup and overlooked at her job as a lighting designer, Iris Sunnegren finds herself stuck, disconnected and lonely in crowded New York City. Then a mysterious neighbor, an older Frenchwoman, makes her a gift: a bespoke perfume. One spritz, a dab behind the ears, and Iris feels like a different woman. Suddenly, she is the object of every man’s desire. She can cast off her inhibitions and use her newfound allure to dazzle the high-profile client, attract a man who excites her like no other, and access all the rarified spaces that once excluded her. Invigorated by the perfume, Iris embodies her maximum power --- a flower fully bloomed. But there is danger in connecting to our primal emotions. Scent awakens buried memories, and nightmares of the childhood house fire Iris barely survived return to haunt her.

A year ago, a father and his fiancée were brutally murdered in their opulent London townhouse, sparking the most high-profile murder investigation in recent history. Blood spatter expert Doctor Claudia O’Sheil’s evidence put the killer behind bars --- or so everyone believes. But since the trial, Claudia has learned a horrific truth: her evidence and her testimony were wrong. And someone she knows made sure of it. Now, as she takes the stage to give a career-defining speech before London’s elite, Claudia faces a devastating choice. Protect her children and her career with her continued complicity, or blow the whole conspiracy apart and reveal the truth: not only is the real murderer still out there, but they’re in the audience.

Talent agent Charlie Francisco has three problems: a divorce that ended his screenwriting career, a business he never planned to inherit, and a take-your-breath-away romance novel whose author wants nothing to do with its publication. The book is a surefire hit, if only his agency can find someone to “play” author on its summer book tour. Enter Kate Elliott, a former soap actress who’s miraculously right for the part at the very moment her life seems to be going all wrong. But she can’t know who really wrote the remarkable story --- the one so beautiful it’s made her believe in love again. When Kate and Charlie meet, they’re all friction and sparks. As the summer heat ups and the lies get bigger and bigger, can they stick to their lines…or will they go off-script?