Laurel Mack is trying to put her life back together. It’s been 10 years since her daughter, Ellie, disappeared, seven years since her marriage ended, and only months since the last clue in Ellie’s case was unearthed. So when she meets an unexpectedly charming man in a café, no one is more surprised than Laurel at how quickly their flirtation develops into something deeper. Before she knows it, she’s meeting Floyd’s daughters --- and his youngest, Poppy, takes Laurel’s breath away. Because looking at Poppy is like looking at Ellie. And now, the unanswered questions about Ellie's disappearance that she has tried so hard to put to rest begin to haunt Laurel anew.

From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, THE OVERSTORY unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late-20th-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours --- vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

Recently suspended for a so-called outburst, high school English teacher Anna Crawford is stewing over the injustice at home when she is shocked to see herself named on television as a suspect in a shooting at the school where she works. Though she is quickly exonerated, and the actual teenage murderer identified, her life is nevertheless held up for relentless scrutiny and judgment as this quiet town descends into media mania. Gun sales skyrocket, victims are transformed into martyrs, and the rules of public mourning are ruthlessly enforced. Anna decides to wholeheartedly reject the culpability she’s somehow been assigned, and the rampant sexism that comes with it, both in person and online.

Greer Kadetsky is a shy college freshman when she meets the woman she hopes will change her life. Faith Frank, dazzlingly persuasive and elegant at 63, has been a central pillar of the women's movement for decades, a figure who inspires others to influence the world. Upon hearing Faith speak for the first time, Greer --- madly in love with her boyfriend, Cory, but still full of longing for an ambition that she can't quite place --- feels her inner world light up. And then, astonishingly, Faith invites Greer to make something out of that sense of purpose, leading Greer down the most exciting path of her life as it winds toward and away from her meant-to-be love story with Cory and the future she'd always imagined.

Set in a small village near Paris, THE BALCONY follows the inhabitants of a single estate --- including a manor and a servants' cottage --- over the course of several generations, from the Belle Époque to the present day, introducing us to a fascinating cast of characters. A young American au pair develops a crush on her brilliant employer. An ex-courtesan shocks the servants, a Jewish couple in hiding from the Gestapo attract the curiosity of the neighbors, and a housewife begins an affair while renovating her downstairs. Rich and poor, young and old, powerful and persecuted, all of these people are seeking something: meaning, love, a new beginning or merely survival.

Samantha “Sam” Mullins felt trapped on her family’s orchard and pie shop, so she left with dreams of making her own mark in the world. But life as an overworked, undervalued sous chef at a reality star’s New York bakery is not what Sam dreamed. When the chef embarrasses Sam, she quits and returns home. Unemployed, single and defeated, she spends a summer working on her family’s orchard cooking and baking alongside the women in her life --- including her mother, Deana, and grandmother, Willo. One beloved, flour-flecked, ink-smeared recipe at a time, Sam begins to learn about and understand the women in her life, her family’s history, and her passion for food through their treasured recipe box.

When Beth disappears, everyone says she’s run off with another man. But Natalie, her best friend, doesn’t believe it. She’s sure something more sinister is going on. Meanwhile, Victor, one of Beth’s and Nat’s favorite bar patrons, has fallen and ended up in the hospital. When he hears that Beth is gone, he doesn’t buy it either. And slowly, a hazy memory comes back to him. As Nat tries to piece together the events --- and people --- in Beth’s life, it becomes more difficult to discern who can and can’t be trusted. The little town in the English countryside takes on an ominous air, with a threat behind every corner, outside every window. And someone is always watching.

When a widower receives notice from a doctor that he doesn’t have long left to live, he is struck by the question of who will care for his adult son, who has Down syndrome. With no recourse in mind, and with a desire to see the country on one last trip, the man signs up as a census taker for a mysterious governmental bureau and leaves town with his son. Traveling into the country, through towns named only by ascending letters of the alphabet, the man and his son encounter a wide range of human experience. As they approach “Z,” the man must confront a series of questions: What is the purpose of the census? Is he complicit in its mission? And just how will he learn to say goodbye to his son?

Lily Decker never meant to become a showgirl. As a young girl in small-town Kansas, she danced to forget the pain of losing her family in a car accident. And dancing made her feel beautiful when the attentions of her Uncle Miles only brought shame. In 1967, Lily is grown and ready to leave her past behind. She changes her name to Ruby Wilde and heads to the Rat Pack’s Las Vegas to make a name for herself as a troupe dancer. However, the competition is fierce, and she finds work as a showgirl instead, doing fan-kicks in sky-high headdresses and sparkling costumes. Her new life brims with glamour and excitement, but something is still missing. Is it love? What choices will she make to feel whole again, and at what cost?

Told in three distinct sections, ASYMMETRY explores the imbalances that spark and sustain many of our most dramatic human relations: inequities in age, power, talent, wealth, fame, geography and justice. The first section, “Folly,” tells the story of Alice, a young American editor, and her relationship with the famous and much older writer Ezra Blazer. By contrast, “Madness” is narrated by Amar, an Iraqi-American man who, on his way to visit his brother in Kurdistan, is detained by immigration officers and spends the last weekend of 2008 in a holding room in Heathrow. These two seemingly disparate stories gain resonance as their perspectives interact and overlap, with yet new implications for their relationship revealed in an unexpected coda.