"In the summer of 1986 in a small Chinese village, ten-year-old Junie receives a momentous letter from her parents, who had left for America years ago: her father promises to return home and collect her by her twelfth birthday. What Junie doesn't know is that her parents, Momo and Cassia, are newly estranged from one another in their adopted country. In order for Momo to fulfill his promise, he must make one last desperate attempt to reunite all three...

It is the year 1910 and the bloodstained body of an unknown woman is found on the grounds of Sir Henry Chetwynd's Shropshire estate. A reluctant heir to the estate, Sebastian Chetwynd is already battling with divided loyalties: his ambition for a career of his own and his father's expectation that he follow in his footsteps, and his duty to marry for money when he is in love with Louisa, a student doctor and supporter of women's rights.

While the residents of Pickax eagerly await a festival celebrating the 150th anniversary of the town's founding, newspaper columnist James Qwilleran must entertain Harvey Ledfield, an aspiring architect. Strange occurrences seem to follow Harvey around. Koko, the Siamese cat, leaps on his head, a knitter predicts murder, and a woman comes from California to leave a message for Qwill. It's up to Koko to help Qwill piece the clues together.

Moving to a small country cabin, a once world-famous photographer bonds with a local man and begins to see the world around her in new, deeper dimensions while evaluating second chances at love, career, and self-understanding.

"A tale of one man's shipwrecked life and an unlikely crew of rescuers. Having lost his long-time journalism job and been swindled out of his life savings, fifty-five-year-old Charles Howard is standing by the edge of Halifax Harbour on a foggy morning contemplating his dismal future when Ramona Danforth interrupts his ritual of self-pity. And so begins a most interesting relationship. Charles and Ramona decide to travel to his childhood home, Stewart...

"Asa's husband is transferring jobs, and his new office is located near his family's home in the countryside. During an exceptionally hot summer, the young married couple move in, and Asa does her best to quickly adjust to their new rural lives, to their remoteness, to the constant presence of her in-laws and the incessant buzz of cicadas. While her husband is consumed with his job, Asa is left to explore her surroundings on her own: she makes trips...

With his companion Polly in Paris, Qwill keeps himself occupied by writing an absurdist play called "The Cat Who Got Elected Dog Catcher." Meanwhile, things are spicing up in Pickax. Huge inheritances from old families are suddenly and mysteriously pouring in to town, but nobody is quite sure why. Except Koko, that is--and she's not telling. Then things get really interesting when one resident drops dead from an apparent bee sting. Can Qwill and his...

"In a forgotten patch of French countryside, a woman is battling her demons embracing exclusion yet wanting to belong, craving freedom whilst feeling trapped, yearning for family life but at the same time wanting to burn the entire house down. Given surprising leeway by her family for her increasingly erratic behaviour, she nevertheless feels ever more stifled and repressed. Motherhood, womanhood, the banality of love, the terrors of desire, the inexplicable...

"Edward Dickens, the tenth child of England's most famous author Charles Dickens, has consistently let down his parents. Unable to apply himself at school and adrift in life, the teenaged boy is sent to Australia in the hopes that he can make something of himself--or at least fail out of the public eye. He soon finds himself in the remote Outback, surrounded by Aboriginals, colonials, ex-convicts, ex-soldiers, and very few women. Even on the other...

"At fifty-one years old, twins Jeanie and Julius still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation in the English countryside. The cottage they have shared their entire lives is their only protection against the modernizing world around them. Inside its walls, they make music, and in its garden, they grow everything they need to survive. To an outsider, it looks like poverty; to them, it is home. But when Dot dies unexpectedly, the world they've...