When Ida and her daughter Bessie flee a catastrophic pogrom in Ukraine for America in 1905, they believe their emigration will ensure that their children and grandchildren will be safe from harm. But choices and decisions made by one generation have ripple effects on those who come later, and in the decades that follow, family secrets, betrayals, and mistakes made in the name of love threaten the survival of the family.

Lucy Duff Gordon knows she is talented. She sees color, light, and texture in ways few people can begin to imagine. But is the male dominated world of haute couture, who would use her art for their own gain, ready for her? When she is deserted by her wealthy husband, Lucy is left penniless with an aging mother and her five-year-old daughter to support. Desperate to survive, Lucy turns to her one true talent to make a living. A

Brooklyn's Hasidic community of Lubavitchers is turned upside down when family tragedy strikes and everyday life changes forever for Zev Altshul. He is first placed into the care of the closed and close-knit community where he grew up, but soon realizes he can't stay. His saving grace is handball, his gift from God, and the one thing he can rely on as he is shuttled, chased, and abandoned by trusted elders, family, and friends. Even as Zev never fully escapes from the guilt of his choices, he sets course across the United States to discover where loyalty really lies and what it means.

Bette Gartner, a ninety-five-year-old widow, wakes up one morning and decides to throw a dinner party that night for her small family, staff, two neighbors, and a medium—and no one knows why. The story takes place over the course of the day and is told through the multiple points of view of Bette’s guests, switching back and forth between them as we learn about their motivations, dreams, hopes, and fears.

When orphan Julie Miller is sent to Canada to keep her safe from Hitler’s bombs at the start of WWII, she hopes this will the start of a happier new life for her after years of sadness. Taken in by a schoolteacher, it seems that Julie’s dreams are coming true. But that’s before a shadow is cast over her safe refuge, and before long, she is forced to run away. This is just the start of a long journey, one with many hardships before she can find a place to call home.

Phoebe is a VAD at a Base Hospital in Étaples, France, treating men who’ve served at the Front. Their courage and resilience inspires her, and though she’s meant to keep her distance, Captain Archie Bailey soon captivates her heart. Her younger sister Celia is a nurse at a POW camp on the island of Jersey. These men fight for the forces that bombed her brother and parents, but long hours spent healing them shows her they aren’t the monsters she expected.

The year 2020 wasn’t the year that Dom Farnan wanted, but it was the year that she needed. In Now Here, she describes the transformational and healing journey that drastically changed how she viewed and showed up in the world. It contains a collection of lessons and fundamental truths about life, work, love, relationships, and spirituality that can apply to anyone stuck in a rut and in need of a change.

Take ownership of your career path. This is your unique journey. The upheaval marking the early 2020s has created the “great opportunity”—an unprecedented chance to prioritize your life and decide what you really want from your career. You can now create a strong personal brand and pursue career activities that are authentic to your goals, not your employer’s. It is within your reach to have autonomy and control over your career, have greater clarity of your priorities, and align your career around the life you want to live.

London, 1940. When nurse Elsie offers to send a reassuring letter to the family of a patient, she has an idea. She begins a book of last letters: messages to be sent on to wounded soldiers’ loved ones should the very worst come to pass so that no one is left without a final goodbye. London, present day. Stephanie has a lot of people she’d like to speak to: her estranged brother, to whom her last words were in anger; her nan, whose dementia means she is only occasionally lucid enough to talk.

As German bombs fall over London in 1940, working-class parents Millie and Reginald Thompson make an impossible choice: they decide to send their eleven-year-old daughter, Beatrix, to America. There, she’ll live with another family for the duration of the war, where they hope she’ll stay safe. Scared and angry, feeling lonely and displaced, Bea arrives in Boston to meet the Gregorys. Mr. and Mrs. G, and their sons William and Gerald, fold Bea seamlessly into their world. She becomes part of this family, learning their ways and their stories, adjusting to their affluent lifestyle.