Five years ago, Lane Kramer moved to Starry Point, North Carolina, certain the quaint island village was the place to start anew. Now the owner of a charming seaside inn, she's set aside her dreams of being a novelist and of finding love again. When English professor Michael Forrester appears on Lane's doorstep in the middle of a storm, he claims he's only seeking a quiet place to write his book. Yet he seems eerily familiar with the island, leaving Lane wondering if he is quite what he appears.

A year ago, Dovie Larkin's life was shattered when her fiance committed suicide just weeks before their wedding. Now, plagued by guilt, she has become a fixture at the cemetery where William is buried, visiting his grave daily, waiting for answers she knows will never come. Then one day, she sees an old woman whose grief mirrors her own. Fascinated, she watches the woman leave a letter on a nearby grave. Dovie ignores her conscience and reads the letter—a mother's plea for forgiveness to her dead daughter—and immediately needs to know the rest of the story.

Pragmatic, independent Lily St. Claire has never been a beachgoer. But when her late father leaves her a small house on Hideaway Key—one neither her mother nor she knew he owned—she's determined to visit the sleepy spit of land along Florida's Gulf Coast. Expecting a quaint cottage, Lily instead finds a bungalow with peeling shutters and mountains of memorabilia. She also catches a glimpse of the architect who lives down the beach.

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

As a teenage runaway and child of an addict, Christy-Lynn learned the hard way that no address was permanent, and no promise sacred. For a while, she found a safe haven in her marriage to bestselling crime novelist Stephen Ludlow - until his car skidded into Echo Bay. But Stephen’s wasn’t the only body pulled from the icy waters that night. When details about a mysterious violet-eyed blonde become public, a media circus ensues, and Christy-Lynn runs again.

Hayden Reese has a bad habit of breaking people's jaws. Granted, he only breaks jaws that deserved some breaking, but he's starting a whole new feud, with the husband of his lover—and this time, it may cost him his life. Hayden's life has never been easy. His father tormented him, his kid brother got all the approval, and he made a fatal mistake that he's never been able to forgive himself for making. But when Hayden's future is shattered by his bad choices, he has to redeem himself in the eyes of his long-estranged daughter Allegra.

After the unexpected death of her father, college student Jane Sharp longs for a distraction from her grief. She becomes obsessed with true crime, befriending armchair detectives who teach her how to hunt killers from afar. In this morbid internet underground, Jane finds friendship, purpose, and even glory . . .So when news of the shocking deaths of three college girls in Delphine, Idaho, takes the world by storm, and sleuths everywhere race to solve the crimes, Jane and her friends are determined to beat them.

1692. On the outskirts of Salem, a bookstore stands covered in overgrown vines. Inside, a young woman hides a linen-wrapped journal under a loose floorboard and runs away, panicked by the sound of hounds barking in the distance. The bookstore vanishes into thin air…

Soline Roussel is well schooled in the business of happy endings. For generations her family has kept an exclusive bridal salon in Paris, where magic is worked with needle and thread. It’s said that the bride who wears a Roussel gown is guaranteed a lifetime of joy. But devastating losses during World War II leave Soline’s world and heart in ruins and her faith in love shaken. She boxes up her memories, stowing them away, along with her broken dreams, determined to forget.

Lizzy Moon never wanted Moon Girl Farm. Eight years ago, she left the land that nine generations of gifted healers had tended, determined to distance herself from the whispers about her family’s strange legacy. But when her beloved grandmother Althea dies, Lizzy must return and face the tragedy still hanging over the farm’s withered lavender fields: the unsolved murders of two young girls, and the cruel accusations that followed Althea to her grave.

Twenty-one years ago Jewel Sabatino left her childhood behind and never looked back. After a magical taste of fame, she found herself alone with a son to raise and not much else. She survived with the help of Michael, her one true friend. But now Michael is too sick to care for himself, and Jewel has run out of options. She leaves New York for the hills of Colorado, unsure if the family she ran from will welcome her back.

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit. But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

Lila Kennedy has a lot on her plate. A broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart, and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in. Her career is in freefall and her love life is . . . complicated. So when her real dad—a man she has barely seen since he ran off to Hollywood thirty-five years ago—suddenly appears on her doorstep, it feels like the final straw. But it turns out even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach you: about love, and what it actually means to be family.

London, 1953. Louise is still adjusting to her postwar role as a housewife when she discovers a necklace in a box at a secondhand shop. The box is marked with the name of a department store in Paris, and she is certain she has seen the necklace before, when she worked with the Red Cross in Nazi-occupied Europe—and that it holds the key to the mysterious death of her friend Franny during the war. Following the trail of clues to Paris, Louise seeks help from her former boss Ian, with whom she shares a romantic history.

Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer’s affinity for books extends beyond the intoxicating scent of old paper, ink, and leather. She can feel the echoes of the books’ previous owners—an emotional fingerprint only she can read. When Ashlyn discovers a pair of beautifully bound volumes that appear to have never been published, her gift quickly becomes an obsession. Not only is each inscribed with a startling incrimination, but the authors, Hemi and Belle, tell conflicting sides of a tragic romance.

Five years ago, Lane Kramer moved to Starry Point, North Carolina, certain the quaint island village was the place to start anew. Now the owner of a charming seaside inn, she's set aside her dreams of being a novelist and of finding love again. When English professor Michael Forrester appears on Lane's doorstep in the middle of a storm, he claims he's only seeking a quiet place to write his book. Yet he seems eerily familiar with the island, leaving Lane wondering if he is quite what he appears.

As a teenage runaway and child of an addict, Christy-Lynn learned the hard way that no address was permanent, and no promise sacred. For a while, she found a safe haven in her marriage to bestselling crime novelist Stephen Ludlow - until his car skidded into Echo Bay. But Stephen’s wasn’t the only body pulled from the icy waters that night. When details about a mysterious violet-eyed blonde become public, a media circus ensues, and Christy-Lynn runs again.

A year ago, Dovie Larkin's life was shattered when her fiance committed suicide just weeks before their wedding. Now, plagued by guilt, she has become a fixture at the cemetery where William is buried, visiting his grave daily, waiting for answers she knows will never come. Then one day, she sees an old woman whose grief mirrors her own. Fascinated, she watches the woman leave a letter on a nearby grave. Dovie ignores her conscience and reads the letter—a mother's plea for forgiveness to her dead daughter—and immediately needs to know the rest of the story.

Pragmatic, independent Lily St. Claire has never been a beachgoer. But when her late father leaves her a small house on Hideaway Key—one neither her mother nor she knew he owned—she's determined to visit the sleepy spit of land along Florida's Gulf Coast. Expecting a quaint cottage, Lily instead finds a bungalow with peeling shutters and mountains of memorabilia. She also catches a glimpse of the architect who lives down the beach.

Though Peak Plantation has been in her family for generations, Leslie Nichols can't wait to rid herself of the farm left to her by her estranged grandmother Maggie. But Leslie isn't the only one with a claim to Peak. Jay Davenport, Peak's reclusive caretaker, has his own reasons for holding onto the land bequeathed to him by Leslie's grandmother. Before she died, Maggie hinted at a terrible secret surrounding Adele Laveau, a lady's maid who came to Peak during the 1930s and died under mysterious circumstances.

Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer’s affinity for books extends beyond the intoxicating scent of old paper, ink, and leather. She can feel the echoes of the books’ previous owners—an emotional fingerprint only she can read. When Ashlyn discovers a pair of beautifully bound volumes that appear to have never been published, her gift quickly becomes an obsession. Not only is each inscribed with a startling incrimination, but the authors, Hemi and Belle, tell conflicting sides of a tragic romance.

Soline Roussel is well schooled in the business of happy endings. For generations her family has kept an exclusive bridal salon in Paris, where magic is worked with needle and thread. It’s said that the bride who wears a Roussel gown is guaranteed a lifetime of joy. But devastating losses during World War II leave Soline’s world and heart in ruins and her faith in love shaken. She boxes up her memories, stowing them away, along with her broken dreams, determined to forget.

Biographer Ellie Connor is in Gideon, Texas, to research blues singer Mabel Beauvais who, on the verge of fame, mysteriously disappeared more than forty years ago. Gideon holds another mystery for Ellie. It’s the truth about her parents—a restless mother who died young and a father she never knew. They are an unsettled piece of Ellie’s own past. Somewhere in this town is the answer to both of her quests.

Nikki Bridges has it good. An enviable home in an upscale neighborhood, a heavenly-scented hobby making personal-blend perfumes, a cherished daughter, and comfortable rituals with a husband she loves. How was she to know it would all blow up with her husband’s affair, a blindsiding divorce, and an identity crisis she never saw coming? With little money, less work experience, and a modest apartment, Nikki is tentatively moving on. Along the way: a waitressing job, a bond with an empathetic group of friends, and reentering the dating game at fortysomething.

At the Vis Ta Vie inn, Reneé and Jean-Paul De La Rue face the daunting decision to close their beloved home for good. They’re not the only ones going through a season of change, though. Their guests include three couples in crisis: Hollywood celebs Leo and Penny are spending their silver anniversary together while on the cusp of divorce. Lucy, a practical-minded therapist, and Henry, an astronomer with his head in the stars, are struggling to find common ground.

In a quiet North Carolina town in 1968, a seventeen-year-old girl’s life is forever changed when a summer romance leads to an unplanned pregnancy. She is sent to an abusive “maternity home,” where she is shamed and deceived into signing adoption papers.

On Stenland, there comes a time known as skeld season: one day, any woman on the island can wake with three black lines on her forehead, the mark of a skeld. Skeld season comes around without warning, and while each window of time lasts only three months, anyone a skeld turns to stone is very much dead. That's how Tess’s mother killed Soren’s parents. Maybe for this reason alone, Tess and Soren should not have fallen in love. Since the time her mother was a skeld, Tess has wanted to leave Stenland, to run from the windswept island, from her family and friends

Twenty-one years ago Jewel Sabatino left her childhood behind and never looked back. After a magical taste of fame, she found herself alone with a son to raise and not much else. She survived with the help of Michael, her one true friend. But now Michael is too sick to care for himself, and Jewel has run out of options. She leaves New York for the hills of Colorado, unsure if the family she ran from will welcome her back.

Luna McGraw struggles to conquer the addictions that destroyed her marriage and caused her to lose custody of her beloved daughter, Joy. After eight years, Joy is back and Luna aims to rebuild everything that fell apart. She has a therapeutic job as a florist, a loving mother’s support, and a new man in her life who makes Luna feel things she’s been afraid to feel since forever.

This is the day my life changes forever. It started so normally. The alarm went at 7am. My husband made bacon and pancakes for me and our seven-year-old daughter, the kitchen full of chatter and laughter. He gave me a quick kiss, told me he loved me, grabbed his wallet, and rushed off to work. Just an ordinary day. Until I get the call from the school. It was Tom’s turn to pick up our daughter. He must be held up for some reason. I find Tom’s phone under our bed. Now I know there’s something seriously wrong. I scroll through his messages. A text sent late last night: I KNOW EVERYTHING.