FORTY AUTUMNS makes visceral the pain and longing of one family forced to live apart in a world divided by two. Here, Nina Willner recounts her family’s story --- five ordinary lives buffeted by circumstances beyond their control. She takes us deep into the tumultuous and terrifying world of East Germany under Communist rule, revealing both the cruel reality her relatives endured and her own experiences as an intelligence officer, running secret operations behind the Berlin Wall that put her life at risk.

Ten years after the Seventh Cavalry massacred more than 200 Lakota men, women and children at Wounded Knee, J.B. Bennett, a white rancher, and Star, a young Native American woman, are murdered in a remote meadow on J.B.’s land. The deaths bring together the scattered members of the Bennett family: J.B.’s cunning and hard father, Drum; his estranged wife, Dulcinea; and his teenage sons, Cullen and Hayward. As the mystery of these twin deaths unfolds, the history of the dysfunctional Bennetts and their damning secrets is revealed, exposing the conflicted heart of a nation caught between past and future.

It's the Roaring Twenties, and 17-year-old Harlean Carpenter McGrew has run off to Beverly Hills. There, she has everything a girl could want, except an outlet for her talent. But everything changes when a dare pushes her to embrace her true ambition --- to be an actress on the silver screen. With her timeless beauty and striking shade of platinum-blond hair, Harlean becomes Jean Harlow. And as she's thrust into the limelight, Jean learns that this new world of opportunity comes with its own set of burdens.

In 1886 New York, a respectable architect shouldn't have any connection to the notorious gang of thieves and killers that rules the underbelly of the city. When John Cross' son racks up an unfathomable gambling debt to Kent's Gents, Cross must pay it back himself. All he has to do is use his inside knowledge of high society mansions and museums to craft a robbery even the smartest detectives won't solve. But Cross' entire life has become a balancing act, and it will only take one mistake for it all to come crashing down --- and for his family to go down too.

Thirty-nine-year-old Adrienne is desperate to be a mother. And this time, nothing is going to get in her way. At 19, Leah bears a remarkable resemblance to the young woman Adrienne once was. Which is why Adrienne knows the baby Leah is carrying is meant to be hers. But Leah has ideas of her own. All she wants is to live in Adrienne’s house for a year after the baby is born and get a fresh start. It seems like a small price for Adrienne to pay to get their baby. And with Adrienne’s husband, Gabe, suddenly on board, what could possibly go wrong?

Since childhood, Wylie Rose has been drawn to the charming, close-knit Bonet siblings. But none affected him more than the enchanting Cesca, a girl blessed with incandescent beauty and a wild, irrepressible spirit. Growing up, Wylie’s friendship with her brother, Aurelio, a budding painter of singular talent, brings him near Cesca’s circle. A young woman confident in her charms, Cesca is amused by Wylie’s youthful sensuality and trusting innocence. Toying with his devotion, she draws him closer to her fire --- ultimately ruining him for any other woman.

Whiskey is everything his twin brother, Charlie, is not --- bold, daring, carefree --- and Charlie blames his brother for always stealing the limelight. When they were just boys, the secret language they whispered back and forth over their crackly walkie-talkies connected them. As the brothers grew up, they grew apart, and in their adulthood, they are barely even speaking to each other. When Charlie hears that Whiskey has been in a terrible accident, he can’t make sense of it. Who is he without Whiskey?

Don’t try to find me. Though the message on the kitchen white board is written in Marley’s hand, her mother Rachel knows there has to be some other explanation. Marley would never run away. As the days pass and it sinks in that the impossible has occurred, Rachel and her husband Paul are informed that the police have “limited resources.” If they want their 14-year-old daughter back, they will have to find her themselves.

A year after getting divorced, Helen Carpenter lets her annoying brother talk her into signing up for a wilderness survival course. When she discovers that her brother’s even-more-annoying best friend is also coming on the trip, she can’t imagine how it will be anything other than a disaster. Thus begins the strangest adventure of Helen's life: three weeks in the remotest wilderness of a mountain range in Wyoming, where she will survive mosquito infestations, a surprise summer blizzard, and a group of sorority girls.

Ellen is a Midwestern literature professor who is drawn into the war when her legal ward, Michael, enlists as a Marine. Lacey is a proud Army wife who struggles to pay the bills and keep things going for her son while her husband is deployed. Ellen and Lacey cope with the fear and stress of a loved one at war while trying to get by in a society that often ignores or misunderstands what war means to women today. When Michael and Eddie are injured in Iraq, Ellen and Lacey’s lives become intertwined in Walter Reed Army Hospital, where each woman must live while caring for her wounded soldier.