When Hollywood auctioneer Emsley Wilson finds her famous grandmother's diary while cleaning out her New York brownstone, the pages are full of surprises. The first surprise is, the diary isn't her grandmother's. It belongs to Johanna Bonger, Vincent van Gogh's sister-in-law.

It is 1887 in Amsterdam, and Johanna Bonger wants to do something different with her life than teaching, translating languages, and managing the back office of her father’s business. She fears she will spend the rest of her days growing old, lonely, and bitter. But all of that is about to change when she is introduced to Theo van Gogh.

Growing up in the care of her grandparents on Belhaven farm, Lizzie Craig discovers as a small child that she can see into the future. But her gift is selective—she doesn’t, for instance, see that she has an older sister who will come to join the family. As her “pictures” foretell various incidents and accidents, she begins to realize a painful truth: she may glimpse the future, but she can seldom change it. Nor can Lizzie change the feelings that come when a young man named Louis, visiting Belhaven for the harvest, begins to court her.

For too long, Opaline, Martha and Henry have been the side characters in their own lives. But when a vanishing bookshop casts its spell, these three unsuspecting strangers will discover that their own stories are every bit as extraordinary as the ones found in the pages of their beloved books. And by unlocking the secrets of the shelves, they find themselves transported to a world of wonder…where nothing is as it seems.

Evangeline Hussey has made a home for herself on Nantucket, though she knows she is still an outsider to the island's small close-knit community, one that by 1849 has started to feel the decline of a once-thriving whaling industry. Her husband, Hosea, and the life they built together, was once all she needed—but now Hosea is gone, lost at sea. Evangeline is only able to hold on to his inn, and her place on the island, by employing a curious gift to glimpse and re-form the recent memories of those who would cast her out.

Zia De Luca’s life is about to be shattered. Having lost her husband to the Great War, she lives with her in-laws in Little Italy and works at the public library. But when a quiet poetry-lover is murdered outside the library, the police investigation focuses on Zia.

Food critic Tempèsta Luddington has always felt like the odd person out in her family, ever since she lost her beloved mother at the tender age of thirteen. When her workaholic father passes fifteen years later, Tempèsta is not surprised that the majority of the considerable family money will pass to her dutiful younger brother, Wal. Still, she is left a modest remembrance from her mother, and for the first time Tempèsta has a world of choices before her.

1889: Kitty Gray dreams of attending university and becoming a doctor, but when she is married off to Charles Maclean, one of Glasgow's richest and most eligible bachelors, her aspiration suddenly slips far from reach. Exiled to her new remote home in the Scottish Highlands, with its gargoyles, gothic arches and turrets, Kitty seeks solace in creating a restorative herb garden. Combining her medical knowledge and new-found fascination with herbalism, Kitty spends her days absorbed in a world of herbs and their healing properties until a devastating tragedy strikes...

June 1941. Hitler's armies race toward vulnerable Leningrad. In a matter of weeks, the Nazis surround the city, cut off the food supply, and launch a vicious bombardment. Widowed violinist Sofya Karavayeva and her teenage granddaughter, Yelena, are cornered in the crumbling city.

Amelia Prentice is recovering from the worst two years of her life. First her daughter and then her parents have died, leaving her without any surviving relatives. As she gets ready to put the family home, a vast Victorian house in Windsor, on the market, she fulfils her mother’s last request to clear out the attic, and she discovers a strange box of Victorian photographs.

Giulia Tofana longs for more responsibility in her mother’s apothecary business, but Mamma has always been secretive and refuses to tell her the hidden keys to her success. But the day Mamma is arrested for the poisoning of the powerful Duke de Verdi, Giulia is shocked to uncover the darker side of her trade. Giulia must run for her life and escapes to Naples, under the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, to the home of her aunt Isabetta, a famous courtesan.

Alberta Preston accepts the commission of a lifetime when she receives an invitation from the earl of Wakeford to spend a summer painting at his lordship's country home, Castle Braemore. Bertie imagines her residence at the prodigious estate will finally enable her to embark on a professional career and prove her worth as an artist, regardless of her gender. Upon her arrival, however, Bertie finds the opulent Braemore and its inhabitants diminished by the Great War. 

 A family secret revealed 40 years ago by a grandmother to her grandson is now an acclaimed Russian historical fiction novel. A Hundred Sweet Promises is the tale of the author’s grandfather, Nasrosoltan, a famed composer, who on the eve of World War I travels from Persia to Russia to study classical music at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with such masters as Rimsky-Korsakov. 

Hampshire, UK, 2015. When Chloe Harper’s beloved grandmother, Lena dies, a stranger hands her Lena’s wartime diary. Chloe sets out to uncover deep family secrets that Lena guarded to her grave. Darjeeling, India, 1943, Lena Chatterjee leaves the confines of a strict boarding school to work as assistant to Lieutenant George Harper, an officer in the British Indian Army. She accompanies him to Nepal and deep into the Himalayas to recruit Gurkhas for the failing Burma Campaign. There, she discovers that Lieutenant Harper has a secret, which she vows never to reveal.

It’s Ruth’s dream to be the world’s greatest female pilot. It’s Amelia—Lady Lindy herself—who achieves it. At first competitors, Ruth soon recognizes they share a passion for the skies and for supporting trailblazing female pilots everywhere. Together they form an all-women flying group, the Ninety-Nines, and over the years their achievements become more groundbreaking, their risks more personal, and their friendship closer than ever, until the day their best-laid plans come crashing down.