As a young mother with a toddler and a live-in boyfriend, Maggie Fisher's job at a checkout counter in downtown Phoenix doesn't afford her much financial flexibility. She dreams of going to college and becoming a teacher, options she squandered when she fled her family home as a teenager. When Maggie stumbles onto an ad offering thousands of dollars to women who are willing to gestate other people's babies, she at first finds the concept laughable. Before long, however, she's been seduced by all the ways the extra money could improve her life.

One year ago today, Tress Walker’s husband was killed in a car accident, on a trip with his secret mistress whilst Tress gave birth to their son. But as time moves on, Tress has to choose whether to protect her fragile heart or open it to love again.

Noah Clark was equally devastated to discover his wife and his best friend were having an affair. Now the love of his life is asking for a second chance. But can there ever be a way back once the trust is broken?

Rachel’s relationship with her mother, Eleanor, has always been far from perfect. Eleanor is a renowned artist born from the swinging '60s, and Rachel has forever lived in the shadow of her success. When Rachel is left by her fiancé on the morning of their wedding she has no choice but to move back into her family home and spend an unbearably hot summer with a mother she feels distant from - in the presence of many painful memories. It will take another turn of events before Rachel realises that sometimes the past holds exactly the comfort we need.

Aisha Moore is eight months pregnant. She’s thrilled, and a little scared. Not least because her husband Jason hasn’t quite wrapped his head around the fact. Lucy is having her first child too. She has finally got her wish – although the circumstances aren’t quite what she had hoped. Oscar will be a great dad though, won’t he? When the two women join the same baby group, they quickly become friends and before long they’re confiding in each other.

When all seems lost, hope remains...Val Murray has mislaid her most precious mementoes of the people she’s loved and lost. Can her family, the wonders of technology and a little divine intervention somehow mend her shattered heart? Sophie Smith had to take a rain check on a marriage proposal. Will her bid to turn back the clock lead her to her greatest love or yet another heartbreak?

Becca and Charlie have known each other since university. Becca and Charlies have also hated each other since university. Until now. Until Ally’s bucket list. The death of their loved one should mean they can go their separate ways and not look back. But completing the list is something neither of them can walk away from. And sometimes, those who bring out the worst in you, also bring out the very best. Over the course of ten years, Becca and Charlie’s paths collide as they deal with grief, love and life after Ally.

When tragedy strikes Marjette’s street, and an unexpected child shows up on the first day of school with an uncle who has all the class moms aflutter, Marjette is forced to contend with both her neighbor and her own heartache over losing the life she once thought was guaranteed.  

When the Butler sisters learn they’ve inherited their beloved grandma Betty’s beach house in South Carolina, they have mixed emotions. To put it mildly. Successful Lana seems to have it all. Nobody needs to know that her marriage and finances are falling apart. For her there’s no other option but to sell the beach house. Overburdened Yvonne already has priorities—including being her mother’s sole caretaker. Her advice: put it on the market and move on. Then there’s sentimental Tami. She can’t let her sisters just unload their past without at least one last trip to the Sea Islands.

With the cloud of the Holocaust still looming over them, twin sisters Bronka and Johanna Lubinski and their parents arrive in the US from a Displaced Persons Camp. In the years after World War II, they experience the difficulties of adjusting to American culture as well as the burgeoning fear of the Cold War. Years later, the discovery of a former Nazi hiding in their community brings the Holocaust out of the shadows. As the girls get older, they start to wonder about their parents’ pasts, and they begin to demand answers. 

When a Category 5 hurricane is poised to hit their coastal Florida town, the Davies family takes refuge in their waterfront manse. Marlowe, Lee, and their teenage twins invite their close friends to wait out the storm in comfort and style. Uninvited are the three strangers who dock on the family’s shore right before the storm descends. Brothers Jason and Bo—and Bo’s girlfriend, Darcy—are a charming, helpful trio in need of a safe haven that the Davies are only too happy to provide. But as the storm outside grows more threatening, so does the tension in the house.

With kids to look after, an ailing mother and a neglected husband, life is full for Emma Fountain—too full, she realises, when she wakes up in IKEA after falling asleep in one of the show beds. Only her crazy, funny best friend Roz keeps her sane. But when Roz climbs in through her bathroom window one day to deliver terrible news, Emma’s belief that she can find a way around any obstacle crumbles in the face of a problem she just can’t fix.

This holiday is the first time my husband Jeff and I have been on our own in years, and I want it to be a fresh start. We can walk along the beach, eat ice cream in the bright Spanish sun, and fall in love again.

At 39, Josie Bordelon's modeling career as the "it" Black beauty of the '90s is far behind her. Now director of admissions at San Francisco's most sought after private school, she's chic, single, and determined to keep her 17-year-old daughter, Etta, from making the same mistakes she did. But Etta has plans of her own - and their beloved matriarch, Aunt Viv, has Etta's back. If only Josie could manage Etta's future as well as she manages the shenanigans of the over-anxious, over-eager parents at school - or her best friend's attempts to coax Josie back onto the dating scene.

Sean pulls me to him, and we both laugh happily, as we stroll home from our favorite wine bar. It’s our first evening out since our baby girl was born. I’ve only thought about Kitty a couple of times, wondering if she’s settled without my goodnight kiss. But our perfect night is shattered when I see the police car and the two officers on the front steps of our home....

Jess Lawson, a 45-year-old healthcare consultant, wife, and mother of two, has spent most of her adulthood fostering the illusion of having a perfect life. Her impending empty-nest syndrome as her youngest child prepares to start college is troubling enough, but when her doctor husband, Arthur, announces his intention to take a prestigious new job on the other side of the country - and relocate without Jess - her world quickly crumbles.