Art historians now suspect that the revered paintings of Lu Anne Bell, an antebellum artist known for her humanizing portraits of the slaves who worked her tobacco farm, were actually the work of Josephine, Lu Anne’s 17-year-old house slave. In piecing together Josephine's story, ambitious young lawyer Lina Sparrow embarks on a journey that will lead her to question her own life, including the full story of her mother's mysterious death.

On the day John F. Kennedy is inaugurated, Claire, an uncompromising young wife and mother, struggles over the decision of whether to stay in a loveless marriage or follow the man she loves and whose baby she may be carrying. Decades earlier, obituary writer Vivien Lowe is searching for her lover who disappeared in the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. The surprising connection between Claire and Vivien will change the life of one of them in unexpected and extraordinary ways.

Ida, yearning to fill a void in her life from growing up in a single-parent household, forms a familial-like bond with her neighbors, two brothers named Jackson and James. Fissures form in the trio when Ida and Jackson start to fall for one another, discovering the dangers of love in the process.

Jo Marie Rose arrives in the Pacific Northwest town of Cedar Cove seeking peace and a fresh start after the death of her husband. She purchases a local bed-and-breakfast, yet the inn holds more surprises than Jo Marie can imagine. Joshua Weaver, who has come to care for his ailing stepfather, and Abby Kincaid, who is back in town for her brother's wedding, are among the cast of characters who find love, forgiveness and renewal behind the doors of the Rose Harbor Inn.

Nick and her cousin, Helena, have grown up sharing sultry summer heat, sun-bleached boat docks, and midnight gin parties on Martha's Vineyard in a glorious old family estate known as Tiger House. However, after the Second World War, their lives start to crack. When Helena's children discover the victim of a brutal murder, it causes everyone's lives to unravel.

One afternoon in 1839, Emily Lowry’s husband vanishes from Wreckers’ Cay, an isolated island off the coast of Key West where he tends to the lighthouse. Emily has no choice but to take over her husband’s duties tending the light to support her children. A runaway slave who washes up on the beach proves himself an enormous help and soon wins the hearts of the Lowry family. His place in Emily’s life, as steadfast now as the light, will forever change their futures..

In these suspenseful stories, lost, fragile characters wander between ordinary life and a psychological shadowland. They have experienced intense love or loss, grief or loneliness, displacement or disconnection --- and find themselves in unfathomable situations.