Laure Beausejour has grown up in a dormitory in Paris surrounded by prostitutes, the insane, and other forgotten women. She dreams with her best friend, Madeleine, of using her needlework skills to become a seamstress and one day marry a nobleman. But in 1669, Laure is sent across the Atlantic to New France with Madeleine as filles du roi. The girls know little of the place they are being sent to, except for stories of ferocious winters and...

Rose Kauffman is engaged to Silas Good, a well-liked Amish fellow, so why does she still pine for Nick Franco, the former foster son of the bishop? Especially now that Nick has left the Amish community under a cloud of suspicion after the death of the bishop's biological son? Will Rose marry Silas, even while struggling with romantic feelings for Nick? Meanwhile, Rose's older sister, Hen, has returned to live at her parents' farm with her young daughter....

On the day in 1907 that eleven-year-old Riley Purefoy meets Nadine Waveney, he notes the difference between their two families—his, working class; hers, wealthier and artistic—and vows to better himself.

Nadine's mother likes Riley as a young boy, but when, a few years later, she detects the romance budding between the two, she fears for her daughter's future. Angry and humiliated, Riley enlists at the nearest recruiting station

...

A continuation of "Shanghai Girls" finds a devastated Joy fleeing to China to search for her real father while her mother, Pearl, desperately pursues her, a dual quest marked by their encounters with the nation's intolerant Communist culture.

After her husband's sudden death from a heart attack, Carley finds herself in a difficult financial situation and decides to turn their historic Nantucket house into a bed-and-breakfast, but events during a late summer heat wave change the lives of Carley and her family.

After her mother's death, Chihiro moves to Tokyo hoping to get over her grief and meets Nakajima, a young man battling his own demons.