Jessie has always known she doesn’t belong, but she thought that would change when she met Adam. But pretending to be someone you’re not isn’t easy. Dolly works hard to keep up appearances, but what’s the point of only eating salad when her boyfriend Josh always seems distracted? Emily couldn’t be happier, and then her boyfriend Mark proposes just as some shocking news sends her life spiralling out of control. Jessie, Dolly, and Emily’s paths will cross in the most unexpected of ways. And as their stories collide, their lives will take a turn you’ll never predict.

1965: After escaping from anti-war turmoil and the suffocating weight of family expectations, a beautiful young couple embrace a life free of materialism and tradition by a sapphire lake in Italy. But the past does not always let go so easily ... 1987: When talented art historian Wren Summers lands her dream job at the Sydney Art Museum, it seems she can finally leave her wildly unconventional background behind - until a treacherous act threatens everything she has strived for.

Paris, 1944. “Traitor!” yells the crowd as they push me down onto a stool. “Nazi collaborator.” Tears blur my vision as the razor grazes my scalp, waves of blonde hair falling to the ground. As men paint a swastika across my face, I hold onto one small glimmer of hope. They have no idea who I am.

Manchester, 1960. When you're young, unmarried and pregnant, in a shaming society that will never understand, there's only one place left to go. St Ann's mother and baby home. That's how restless Joan, who dreams of a glamorous new life in the Big Smoke, finds herself shut away with two unlikely new roommates: spirited Megan and timid country-girl Caroline, who fell pregnant on her first time. Abandoned by their families, they have no one to rely on but each other, as they wait out the days before they birth their babies - only to be parted from them forever.

Gaelle has a dream job working for a fashion magazine, and a husband who loves her. Life should be perfect, but life does not always go according to plan. Feeling lost and alone, Gaelle flees to a tiny seaside town on the other side of the country. As she revisits the legacy of a strange, sometimes magical childhood in France, Gaelle finds unexpected help from a thirteen-year-old stranger.

When Luna loses her beloved mother, she’s bereft: her mother was her only family, and without her Luna feels rootless. Then the chance discovery of a collection of letters in her mother’s belongings sends her on an unexpected journey.

When Katja Heinz secures a job as a typist in Hamburg working for Doctor Viktor’s clinic, she doesn’t expect to be writing up top secret medical records. Doctor Viktor treated soldiers for PTSD at the end of the first world war – and one of the patients was none other than Adolf Hitler.... The notes in his possession declare Hitler unfit for office; exposing such a secret would destroy the Fuhrer's reputation, and perhaps even change the course of the war.

England, 1918. Armistice Day should bring peace into Leonora's life. Rather than secretly making cosmetics in her father's chemist shop to sell to army nurses such as Joan, her adventurous Australian friend, Leo hopes to now display her wares openly. Instead, Spanish flu arrives in the village, claiming her father's life. Determined to start over, she boards a ship to New York City. On the way she meets debonair department store heir Everett Forsyth....

Journalist Sadie is home for the first time in fifteen years, staying in her small childhood bedroom as she deals with her estranged father’s death and her surprising inheritance. When Sadie meets Rebecca, the reclusive new owner of the solitary cottage at the edge of nearby Whisper Lake, she’s taken aback by the older woman’s request for help: ‘I need to find my family. Will you help me?’. She’s even more surprised when afterwards, Rebecca acts as if she never made the plea.

Alex would like to believe she’s a woman who has it all. Or that’s what she tells everyone, including herself. But this is far from true. Actually she’s on the cusp of losing her home, her dream career as a writer is in tatters, her ex won’t speak to her, and her mother’s gone forever. But then a chance meeting with a stranger named Hope gives her the opportunity of a lifetime, when Hope jokes that perhaps Alex should take over her job in a cafe while she goes travelling.