It's 1983 and seventeen-year-old Grace Clark has just lost her mother when she begrudgingly accompanies her estranged father to an archeological dig at Olduvai Gorge on the Serengeti plains of Tanzania. Here, seventy-year-old Mary Leakey enlists Grace to sort and pack her fifty years of work and memories. Their interaction reminds Mary how she pursued her ambitions of becoming an archeologist in the 1930s by sneaking into lectures and working on excavations.

Mary Mulligan has two problems: her wisdom teeth…and everything else. Her only daughter is moving overseas. Her husband would rather go golfing than spend time with her. And Mary’s left to wonder why she abandoned her career ambitions when loneliness is all she has to show for it. Plus her teeth really, really hurt. But that’s one problem she can fix—never mind the stories that say if she gets her wisdom teeth removed, the last thirty years of her life will be erased. In fact, Mary wouldn’t mind if the Mulligan curse were actually true.

Florence, South Carolina 1944: Lieutenant Raymond Sellers bids farewell to his brother Jimmie, the weight of what lies ahead hanging heavy in the air. The brothers have always been inseparable—Raymond, the steady protector, Jimmie, the wild-hearted dreamer. But as Raymond embraces his pregnant wife Evelyn one last time, war is about to test the bonds of family in ways they never imagined. As a summer storm shakes the windows, Evelyn brings her baby into a world at war.

What does it take to escape the plotlines mapped onto us? Searching for clues in the work of her literary foremothers, Lipson untangles what it means to be a girl, a woman, a lover, a partner, a daughter, and a mother in a world all too ready to reduce us to stock characters.

Liza Day’s mother isn’t dead, but leave it to Darla Day to throw herself a funeral anyway. It’s the kind of attention grab Liza left behind to build a quiet life for herself and her rebellious teenage daughter, Avery. But between her students discovering her old daytime TV show—putting her teaching job at risk—and her mother’s unexpected funeral invitation, Liza’s life feels truly like a soap opera.

Seventeen-year-old Margaux doesn’t realize one photo could change the course of her life. But in German-occupied Paris, nothing makes sense anymore. Margaux fears the worst when her lover is arrested. And when her photo appears in Nazi propaganda, her family’s reputation and prospects suffer the consequences. In 2008, Margaux has moved into a retirement home, and her granddaughter Barbara continues to live in the Paris apartment they used to share.

When her husband goes missing, Marissa Creighton fears the worst. Tell me you trust me was the last thing Ethan said to her, and she’d shrugged it off. Now she can’t get those words out of her head. Marissa’s family has always been her rock. But when they come to help her with eighteen-month-old Logan, their overprotectiveness borders on oppression—occupational hazard of the family’s surveillance business, or is it? Seeking comfort in the playlist she and Ethan share, Marissa is shocked to find a new song there: “Trust Me.” She’s certain it’s a message.

On the surface, Denny Voss’s life in rural Minnesota is a quiet one. At thirty years old, he lives at home with his elderly mother and his beloved blind and deaf Saint Bernard, George. He cleans up roadkill to help pay the bills. Though his prospects are limited by a developmental delay—the result of an accident at birth—Denny has always felt that he has “a good life.” So how did he wind up being charged with the murder of a mayoral candidate—after crashing a sled full of guns into a tree?

When Emma meets Matthew, a kind, handsome widower, he seems to be just what she needs. Yet as their relationship moves fast, Emma’s friends worry she might be exploited. She’s a rich woman after all. Emma doesn’t care Matthew has no money. But as the memory of his perfect first wife hangs over them, Emma does have one tiny doubt. If Matthew’s wife hadn’t died, he wouldn’t be with her. And Emma wonders if she’s second best. Can she ever fill the dead woman’s shoes?

When Shelby Dawson survives a harrowing attack that should have left her dead, she tries to move past it—for herself, and for her family. Fifteen months later, with the help of her best friend, Mackenzie, she finally feels safe again in the snowy Minnesota town she calls home. But when an anonymous note appears on her windshield bearing the same threats her attacker made, Shelby realizes that her nightmare has only just begun.

Jill Ellington's twin sister hasn't spoken a word since she allegedly murdered her husband, and her three-year-old son is missing. No one in the small, idyllic town of Paradise saw or heard a single thing. The chief of police already has Jill's twin convicted and her nephew dead and buried. Jill is going to need a miracle to uncover the truth.

Hana Babic is a quiet middle-aged librarian in Minnesota who wants nothing more than to be left alone. But when a detective arrives with the news that her best friend has been murdered, Hana knows that something evil has come for her, a dark remnant of the past she and her friend had shared. Thirty years before, Hana was someone else: Nura Divjak, a teenager growing up in the mountains of war-torn Bosnia—until Serbian soldiers arrived to slaughter her entire family before her eyes. The events of that day thrust Nura into the war, leading her to join a band of militia fighters.

Devon Mayes thought she was done with the small conservative town she once called home. She fled when she was eighteen after her best friend Summer took her own life, leaving Summer’s twin brother, Keaton, lost in his grief. But when tragedy strikes again, Devon has nowhere to turn but back to the place that first broke her heart. Being back in Arkana means struggling with the old guilt that shrouds her bisexuality and her feelings for Keaton. There’s so much she’s still hiding from him—and so much of their shared past that’s now resurfacing.

Sabrina Adams thought her luck had finally turned around when she was hired as a librarian for the wealthy Dorsey family. But as soon as she arrives at their elegant estate, she senses something is off. They have cameras everywhere. She’s banned from the third floor, and she spotted someone watching the house from the nearby woods. And why does the housekeeper, Mrs Manning, insist on so many rules?

Jordan Sable, a prosperous undertaker turned political boss, has controlled the Black vote in St. Louis for decades. Sara, his equally formidable wife, runs the renowned funeral establishment that put the Sable name on the map. Together they have pushed through obstacles in order to create a legacy for their children. When tragedy bursts their carefully constructed empire of dignity and safety, the family rallies around an unconventional solution. But at what cost?