Sunny Mann has masterminded a life for herself and her family in a quiet Virginia town. But when a fender bender on an average day sends her coiffed blonde wig sailing out the window, her secret is exposed. As her facade begins to unravel, we discover the singular world of Sunny, an everywoman searching for the perfect life, and Maxon, an astronaut on his way to colonize the moon.

Summer vacation on Great Rock Island was supposed to be a restorative time for Kate, who had lost her close friend Elizabeth in a sudden accident. But when she inherits a trunk of Elizabeth's journals, they reveal a woman far different from the cheerful wife and mother Kate thought she knew.

Emerald Torrington didn't plan anything special for her 20th birthday. With her stepfather away on family business, it was just to be her siblings, her mother and an old friend. But a gift from a suitor, an unexpected reunion, a pony in the house, and a terrible train wreck destroy Emerald's careful plans and create a night of havoc, horror, revealed secrets and romance.

Stunned to learn that her son, Sam, is about to become a father at 19, Anne Lamott begins a journal about the first year of her grandson Jax's life. Lamott and Sam struggle to balance their changing roles with the demands of college and work, as they both forge new relationships with Jax's mother.

When Kelle Hampton learned she was pregnant with her second child, she and her husband were ecstatic. But the moment her new daughter was placed in her arms in the delivery room, Kelle knew that something was wrong. She was certain that Nella had Down syndrome --- a fear her pediatrician soon confirmed.

CARRY THE ONE begins in the hours following Carmen’s wedding reception, when a car filled with stoned, drunk and sleepy guests accidentally hits and kills a girl on a dark country road. For the next 25 years, those involved, including Carmen and her brother and sister, craft their lives in response to this single tragic moment.

Roo Fanshaw’s wealthy uncle agrees to take her into his home after she loses her parents. His strange house is teeming with ghost stories and secrets, and Roo keeps hearing eerie noises. People are lying to her, and Roo becomes determined to find the truth. Despite the best efforts of her uncle's assistants, Roo discovers the house's hidden room --- a garden with a tragic secret.

Jack and Mabel have recently arrived in Alaska in 1920. Longing for children and struggling in their marriage, they build a child out of snow. The next morning, the snow child is gone --- but they glimpse a small girl running through the trees. As they struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, Jack and Mabel come to love her as their own daughter.

Siblings George and Cecile live in Venice, California, but think of themselves as French ducks. They have an important friend, Polina Panova, who conjures magical dresses of thread, silk and velvet…of grass, pieces of night sky, and strawberry jam. To the ducks, who delight in her daily visits, Polina is a princess. But when Polina's prince --- who makes movies almost as luminous as her dresses --- decides to go away, life on the canal changes, and so does Polina.

In the midst of the deep recession of the early 1980s, English student Madeleine Hanna is writing her senior thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot, purveyors of the marriage plot that lies at the heart of the greatest English novels. As Madeleine attempts to align this literary theme with current ideals, she finds herself in a complex love triangle that continues long after graduation.