It is 1865, the American Civil War has just ended and 18-year old Vita Tenney is determined to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a country doctor like her father. But when her father tells her she must get married instead, Vita explores every means of escape - and finds one in the person of war veteran Jacob Culhane. Damaged by what he's seen in battle and with all his family gone, Jacob is seeking investors for a fledgling business. Then he meets Vita - and together they hatch a plan that should satisfy both their desires.

London, 1878. One April morning, a small boat bearing a young woman’s corpse floats down the murky waters of the Thames. When the victim is identified as Rose Albert, daughter of a prominent judge, the Scotland Yard director gives the case to Michael Corravan, one of the only senior inspectors remaining after a corruption scandal the previous autumn left the division in ruins. Reluctantly, Corravan abandons his ongoing case, a search for the missing wife of a shipping magnate, handing it over to his young colleague, Mr. Stiles.

It is two years before the outbreak of World War 1, and the Oakley family are typical of their time. Andrew has been clerk at a City solicitors for twenty years. Alice, his wife, keeps the home fires burning. Their sons plan on becoming skilled apprentices. And Mabel, their daughter, says she would rather die than go into domestic service like her cousin. She is going to go to train as a secretary. Andrew Oakley little imagines, as he sets off for work one February morning, that their lives are about to change in the most dramatic and tragic fashion.

Leonidas, champion gladiator of Rome, is set free from the games by a mysterious benefactor who grants him freedom, a place to live, and a servant - Cassia, a scribe - to look after him. But the benefactor is only so generous - Leonidas must pay his own way and Cassia’s, which means hiring himself out. The sharp-witted Cassia quickly lands him a post as a bodyguard, escorting a retired senator to Ostia.

One hot, humid day in July 1944, the Gestapo abducted 15-year-old Henry and his mother, forcing them onto cramped cattle cars in the Łódź Polish Ghetto. Like so many Jews before them, they had been selected to disappear–they were being sent to Auschwitz.