A few years ago, David Alvarez had it all: a six-figure book deal, a loving boyfriend, and an exciting writing career. His debut novel was a resounding success, which made the publication of his second book—a total flop—all the more devastating. Now, David is single, lonely, and desperately trying to come up with the next great idea for his third manuscript, one that will redeem him in the eyes of readers, reviewers, the entire publishing world…and maybe even his ex-boyfriend.

At forty, Peter, an asylum lawyer in New York City, is overworked and isolated. He spends his days immersed in the struggles of immigrants only to return to an empty apartment and occasional hook-ups with a man who wants more than Peter can give. But when the asylum case of a young gay man pierces Peter's numbness, the event that he has avoided for twenty years returns to haunt him. Ann, his mother, who runs a women's retreat center she founded after leaving his father, is wounded by the estrangement from Peter but cherishes the world she has built.

Isaac is at a crossroads in his young life. Growing up in Missouri, the son of a caustic, hard-driving father, he was conditioned to suppress his artistic pursuits and physical desires, notions that didn’t align with a traditional view of masculinity. But now, in late ’80s Chicago, Isaac has finally carved out a life of his own. He is sensitive and tenderhearted and has built up the courage to seek out a community. Yet just as he begins to embrace who he is, two social catalysts—the AIDS crisis and Rodney King’s attack—collectively extinguish his hard-earned joy.

Baumgartner’s life had been defined by his deep, abiding love for his wife, Anna, who was killed in a swimming accident nine years earlier. Now 71, Baumgartner continues to struggle to live in her absence as the novel sinuously unfolds into spirals of memory and reminiscence, delineated in episodes spanning from 1968, when Sy and Anna meet as broke students working and writing in New York, through their passionate relationship over the next 40 years, and back to Baumgartner’s youth in Newark and his Polish-born father’s life as a dress-shop owner and failed revolutionary.

Camera-shy Elise Branson is different from the other women in her maternal line. Her mother is an award-winning actress. Her late grandmother, Vivian Snow, is a beloved Hollywood icon. But when Elise’s upcoming wedding coincides with a documentary being made about Vivian, Elise can’t escape the camera’s gaze. And neither can her grandmother, even in death.

After more than twenty years away from the law, Joe Hennessy is forced back into the courtroom. Trying to save his vineyard after years of drought, Hennessy returns to practice in Charleston, South Carolina–the city he walked away from after the murder of his ten-year-old son. When one of South Carolina's most powerful men is charged with possessing stolen artwork, Hennessy steps forward to defend him. But as Hennessy digs into the evidence, as he navigates the truth, he finds that the criminal charges are only the start of their problems…

On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother of four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist. Ireland is falling apart. The country is in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny and when her husband disappears, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a society that is quickly unravelling.

Trunks packed with potions and cures, Jane Aire sets out on a crisp, clear morning in October to face the greatest challenge of her sheltered girls’-school existence. A shadow lies over Thornfield Hall and its reclusive master, Edward Rochester. And he’s hired her only as a last resort. Jane stumbles again and again as she tries to establish a rapport with her prickly new employer, but he becomes the least of her worries as a mysterious force seems to work against her.

Early in the Great War, men left Britain’s factories in droves to enlist. Struggling to keep up production, arsenals hired women to build the weapons the military urgently needed. “Be the Girl Behind the Man Behind the Gun,” the recruitment posters beckoned. Thousands of women—cooks, maids, shopgirls, and housewives—answered their nation’s call. These “munitionettes” worked grueling shifts often seven days a week, handling TNT and other explosives with little protective gear.

After a tragic accident claims the life of one of her children, Marie Egide is desperate to carve out a fresh start for her family. With her husband and their three surviving children, Marie travels to New Hampshire, where she plans to sell a family estate and then, just maybe, they’ll be able to heal from their grief. Marie’s plans are thwarted when she realizes a war veteran known by locals as “the river witch” is living in a cabin on the property, which she claims was a gift from Marie’s grandfather. If Davina refuses to move on, Marie won’t be able to either.

In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessey is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the projects of “Southie,” the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to tradition and stands proudly apart. One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched.

It’s the hottest day of the 1976 heatwave and there’s not a breath of fresh air in the labour ward at Lincoln County Hospital. Michelle is having her fourth child, a girl, while beloved husband Dean is sipping a cold pint in the pub. Their little house is already bursting at the seams, but Michelle is sure they’ll find a way to stretch their budget and continue life as a blissfully chaotic happy family. They name their new baby Donna.

Al Ward lives on an isolated mining claim in the high desert of central Nevada fifty miles from the nearest town. A grizzled man in his sixties, he survives on canned soup, instant coffee, and memories of his ex-wife, friends and family he’s lost, and his life as a touring musician. Hampered by insomnia, bouts of anxiety, and a chronic lethargy that keeps him from moving back to town, Al finds himself teetering on the edge of madness and running out of reasons to go on—until a horse arrives on his doorstep: nameless, blind, and utterly helpless.

The year is 1921, and America is burning. A fire of vice and virtue rages on every shore, and Chicago is its beating heart. Nelly Sawyer is the daughter of the “wealthiest Negro in America”, whose affluence catapulted his family to the heights of Black society. After the unexpected death of her only brother, Nelly becomes the premier debutante overnight. But Nelly has aspirations beyond society influence and marriage.

In 1857, a woman escaped enslavement on a North Carolina plantation and fled to a farm in New York. In hiding, she worked on a manuscript that would make her famous long after her death. The novel, The Bondwoman’s Narrative, was first published in 2002 to great acclaim, but the author’s identity remained unknown. Over a decade later, Professor Gregg Hecimovich unraveled the mystery of the author’s name and, in The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts, he finally tells her story.