Misery Lark, the only daughter of the most powerful Vampyre councilman of the Southwest, is once again an outcast. Her days of living in anonymity among the Humans are over. She has been called upon to uphold a historic peacekeeping alliance between the Vampyres and their mortal enemies, the Weres, and sees little choice but to surrender herself in the exchange. Weres are ruthless and unpredictable, and their Alpha, Lowe Moreland, is no exception. He rules his pack with absolute authority, but not without justice. It’s clear from the way he tracks Misery’s every movement that he doesn’t trust her. If only he knew how right he was. Misery has her own reasons to agree to this marriage of convenience, reasons that have nothing to do with politics or alliances, and everything to do with the only thing she's ever cared about.

Candy Wilson has forgotten to buy the paprika. Turner Davis needs to get his zinnias in. Della Dorner told her mother she was going to the Galaxy Swirl, but that's not where she's really headed on her new Schwinn five-speed. FLOAT UP, SING DOWN is the story of a single day. But in that day, how much teeming life! The residents of this rural town have their routines, preferences, joys, grudges and regrets. Gossip is paramount. Lives are entwined. Retired sheriffs climb corn bins and muse on lost love, French teachers throw firecrackers out of barn windows, and teenagers borrow motorcycles to ride the back roads. Each of these 14 stories follows one character's day in the life in one of Laird Hunt's most beloved and enduring landscapes.

Late one night, Laura, Daniel and Mo find themselves beneath the fluorescent lights of a high school classroom, almost a year after disappearing from their hometown, the small seaside community of Lovesend, Massachusetts, having long been presumed dead. Which, in fact, they are. With them in the room is their previously unremarkable high school music teacher, who seems to know something about their disappearance --- and what has brought them back again. Desperate to reclaim their lives, the three agree to the terms of the bargain their music teacher proposes. They will be given a series of magical tasks. While they undertake them, they may return to their families and friends, but they can tell no one where they’ve been. But their resurrection has attracted the notice of other supernatural figures, all with their own agendas.

Eve has a good life. She gets up each day, gets a kiss from her husband Nate, and heads off to teach math at the local high school. All is as it should be. Last year, though, Caseham High was rocked by a scandal involving a student-teacher affair, with one student, Addie, at its center. But Eve knows there is far more to these ugly rumors than meets the eye. Addie can't be trusted. She lies. She hurts people. She destroys lives. At least, that's what everyone says. But nobody knows the real Addie. Nobody knows the secrets that could destroy her. And Addie will do anything to keep it quiet.

Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn’t one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she’s the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. In her bones, Ricki knows that a more exciting life awaits her somewhere. When regal nonagenarian Ms. Della invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning. She leaves behind her family, wealth and chaotic romantic decisions to realize her dream of opening a flower shop. And just beneath the surface of her new neighborhood, the music, stories and dazzling drama of the Harlem Renaissance still simmers. One evening in February, Ricki encounters a handsome, deeply mysterious stranger who knocks her world off balance in the most unexpected way.

Everyone remembers her daringly short, silver lamé dress. It was an iconic photo capturing an electric moment, where emerging American designer Astrid Bricard is young, uninhibited, and on the cusp of fashion and feminism’s changing landscape. Yet she can't escape the shadow of her mother, Mizza Bricard, infamous "muse" for Christian Dior. Astrid would give anything to take her place among the great houses of couture --- on her own terms. But then Astrid disappeared. Now Astrid's daughter, Blythe, holds what remains of her mother and grandmother's legacies. Of all the Bricard women, she can gather the torn, painfully beautiful fabrics of three generations of heartbreak to create something that will shake the foundations of fashion. But what really happened to Astrid?

For the last 10 years, the small, claustrophobic town of West Wilmer has been struggling to understand one thing: Why did it take young Grant Dean 27 minutes to call for help on the fateful night of the car accident that took the life of his beloved sister, Phoebe? Someone knows what really happened the night Phoebe died. Someone who is ready to tell the truth. With Phoebe's memorial in just three days, grief, delusion, ambition and regret tornado together with biting gossip in a town full of people obsessed with a long-gone tragedy with four people at its heart --- the caretaker, the secret girlfriend, the missing bad boy and a former football star. Just kids back then, they are forever tied together the fateful rainy night Phoebe died.

Eli North is not okay. His drinking is getting worse by the day, his emotional wounds after a deployment to Afghanistan are as raw as ever, his marriage and career are over, and the only job he can hold down is with the local sheriff’s department. And that’s only because the sheriff is his mother --- and she’s overwhelmed with small town Shaky Lake’s dwindling budget and the fallout from the opioid epidemic. The Northwoods of Wisconsin may be a vacationer’s paradise, but amidst the fishing trips and campfires and Paul Bunyan festivals, something sinister is taking shape. When the body of a teenage boy is found in the lake, it sets in motion an investigation that leads Eli to a wealthy enclave with a violent past, a pharmaceutical salesman and a missing teenage girl.

New York City, 1911. Finding herself at a crossroads with both her marriage and her writing, Edith Wharton makes the decision to leave America, her publisher and her loveless marriage. And then, dashing novelist David Graham Phillips --- a writer with often notorious ideas about society and women’s place in it --- is shot to death outside the Princeton Club. Edith herself met the man only once, when the two formed a mutual distaste over tea in the Palm Court of the Belmont hotel. When Phillips is killed, Edith's life takes another turn. His sister is convinced Graham was killed by someone determined to stop the publication of his next book, which promised to uncover secrets that powerful people rather would have stayed hidden. Though unconvinced, Edith is curious. What kind of book could push someone to kill?

Leah has been living with akinetopsia, or motion blindness, since she was a child. For the last 20 years, she hasn’t been able to see movement. But she does see a good deal, and with her acute senses of smell and hearing, very little escapes her notice. When Alice moves into the apartment next door, Leah can immediately smell the anxiety wafting off her. Worse, she can’t help but hear Alice and a late-night visitor engage in a violent fight. Then one night, Leah wakes up to someone in her apartment. She blacks out and in the morning is left wondering if she dreamt the episode. Yet the scent of the intruder follows her everywhere. And when she hears Alice through the wall pleading for her help, Leah makes a decision that will test her courage, her strength and ultimately her sanity.