National Network for Equitable Library Service

Lancashire, 1858. Annie Hallam has at last found complete happiness. She has three healthy children and adores her husband Frederick.

For Mattie Willit, caught in a thunderstorm running away from her bullying stepfather,rescue comes in the form of Jacob Kemble,a widowed farmer living with his two young children.

Ismay Deagan has one wish in the world - to leave Ireland and join her brother, Bram, in Australia. However, her father has other ideas and orders her to marry their vicious neighbour Rory Flynn.

Mary Jo's caustic comments about love and life can't conceal her confusion about both, but liberated baptist Fayrene and party girl Collie help Mary Jo cope in a white, patriarchal world.

Rae's life falls apart when her father dies of cancer and her mother joins a religious cult. The only person who understands Rae is local bad girl Didi, who is experiencing a similar loss.

Sonja is seen as a curiosity in the minuscule Texas town of Dorfburg. Twenty-nine years old and big-boned, she is purported to be the daughter of a famous Native American trick-roper.

A single mom and her seventeen-year-old daughter learn how to let go in that precarious moment before college empties the nest.