When a woman is murdered in Blackdown, a quintessentially British village, newsreader Anna Andrews is reluctant to cover the case. Detective Jack Harper is suspicious of her involvement, until he becomes a suspect in his own murder investigation. Someone isn’t telling the truth, and some secrets are worth killing to keep.

England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on. A young Latin tutor --- penniless and bullied by a violent father --- falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.

Born in Michigan in the early 1940s to a taciturn mother and embittered father, Lottie Kristin is independent from the start, fascinated with the mysteries of nature and the human body. By age 16, she and her sweetheart, cheerful high school sports hero Charlie Hart, have been through a devastatingly traumatic pregnancy. When an injury ends Charlie's football career four years later, the two move to Texas hoping for a fresh start. There, torn between the vitality of the antiwar movement and her family's traditional values, Lottie discovers the joys of motherhood, and reconnects with her interest in biology and experimentation, taking a job as a lab technician. While Charlie's depression pervades their home, Lottie's instinct is toward life.

Samantha Casey is a school librarian who loves her job, the kids and her school family with passion and joy for living. But she wasn’t always that way. Duncan Carpenter is the new school principal who lives by rules and regulations, guided by the knowledge that bad things can happen. But he wasn’t always that way. And Sam knows it. Because she knew him before --- at another school, in a different life. Back then, she loved him --- but she was invisible. To him. To everyone. Even to herself. She escaped to a new school, a new job, a new chance at living. And then Duncan, of all people, gets hired as the new principal there. He is now a suit-and-tie-wearing, rule-enforcing tough guy so hell-bent on protecting the school that he’s willing to destroy it.

After a scandalous secret turns their fairy-tale wedding into a nightmare, Rebecca "Bex" Porter and her husband, Prince Nicholas, are in self-imposed exile. Cutting themselves off from friends and family, and escaping the world's judgmental eyes, feels like the best way to protect their fragile, all-consuming romance. But when a crisis forces the new Duke and Duchess back to London, the Band-Aid they'd placed over their problems starts to peel at the edges. Now, as old family secrets and new ones threaten to derail her new royal life, Bex has to face the emotional wreckage she and Nick left behind: with the Queen, with the world, and with Nick's brother Freddie, whose sins may not be so easily forgotten --- or forgiven.

Dating is the last thing on Olivia Monroe’s mind when she moves to LA to start her own law firm. But when she meets a gorgeous man at a hotel bar and they spend the entire night flirting, she discovers too late that he is none other than hotshot junior senator Max Powell. Olivia is surprised to find that Max is sweet, funny and noble --- not just some privileged white politician she assumed him to be. Because of Max’s high-profile job, they start seeing each other secretly, which leads to clandestine dates and silly disguises. But when they finally go public, the intense media scrutiny means people are now digging up her rocky past and criticizing her job. Olivia knows that what she has with Max is something special, but is it strong enough to survive the heat of the spotlight?

Claire Cook has a perfect life. Married to the scion of a political dynasty, with a Manhattan townhouse and a staff of 10, her surroundings are elegant, her days flawlessly choreographed, and her future auspicious. But behind closed doors, nothing is quite as it seems, and she has worked for months on a plan to vanish. A chance meeting in an airport bar brings Claire together with Eva, whose circumstances seem equally dire. Together they make a last-minute decision to switch tickets, believing that the swap will give each of them the head start they need to begin again somewhere far away. But when one of the flights goes down, Claire realizes it's no longer a head start but a new life. With the news of her death about to explode in the media, Claire will assume Eva's identity --- and, along with it, the secrets Eva fought so hard to keep hidden.

Jessica and Emily Burnstein have very different ideas of how their college tour should go. For Emily, it's a preview of freedom, exploring the possibility of her new and more exciting future. Maybe the other kids on the tour will like her more than the ones at school. For Jessica, it's a chance to bond with the daughter she seems to have lost. She isn't even sure if Emily likes her anymore. To be honest, Jessica isn't sure she likes herself. Together with a dozen strangers --- and two familiar enemies --- Jessica and Emily travel the East Coast, meeting up with family and old friends along the way. Surprises and secrets threaten their relationship and, in the end, change it forever.

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age 16, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her Black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect?

It’s 2am on a Saturday night in the spring of 2001, and 28-year-old Cecily Gardner sits alone in a dive bar in New York’s East Village, questioning her life. Feeling lonesome and homesick for the Midwest, she wonders if she’ll ever make it as a reporter in the big city --- and whether she made a terrible mistake in breaking up with her longtime boyfriend, Matthew. As Cecily reaches for the phone to call him, she hears a guy on the barstool next to her say, “Don’t do it --- you’ll regret it.” Something tells her to listen, and over the next several hours --- and shots of tequila --- the two forge an unlikely connection. Then Grant disappears in the chaos of 9/11. Fearing the worst, Cecily spots his face on a missing-person poster, and realizes she is not the only one searching for him. Her investigative reporting instincts kick into action as she vows to discover the truth.