"Shortly before World War II, Chi Chi Donatelli and Saverio Armandonada meet one summer on the Jersey shore and fall in love. Both are talented and ambitious, and both share the dream of becoming singers for the legendary orchestras of the time: Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman. They're soon married, and it isn't long before Chiara and Tony find that their careers are on the way up as they navigate the glamorous worlds of night clubs, radio,...

In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a...

Shortly after her first kiss but before her sixteenth birthday in December, 1941, Marie Claire and her younger brother and sister are sent to a tuberculosis sanatorium near their Manitoba farm.

World War II turns Molly's family upside down. While her father is away, war breaks out on the McIntires' home front.

"When Lilliana Swope's beloved mother dies, Lilliana gathers her last ounce of courage and flees her abusive husband for the home of her only living relative in the foothills of No Creek, North Carolina. Though Hyacinth Belvidere hasn't seen Lilliana since she was five, she offers her cherished great-niece a safe harbor. Their joyful reunion inspires plans to revive Aunt Hyacinth's estate and open a public library where everyone is welcome, no matter...

It's 1945, and 16-year-old Terry dreams of waiting tables at the Airlines Hotel in Gander, "Gateway to the World at War!" When his mother becomes ill, and their house is quarantined, Terry conjures up a fantasy hotel world to keep his fears at bay, complete with a spy mystery and a romance with the vivacious Laurie Dwyer. But with a war outside and death upstairs, Terry must choose between boyhood fantasies or confronting life's hard truths.

"Trinidad in the 1940s, nearing the end of American occupation and British colonialism. On a hill overlooking Bell Village sits the Changoor farm, where Dalton and Marlee Changoor live in luxury unrecognizable to those who reside in the farm's shadow. Down below is the barrack, a ramshackle building ... divided into rooms occupied by whole families. Among these families are the Saroops--Hans, Shweta, and their son, Krishna, all three born of the barracks....

"Vera Bodine, an elderly shut-in with an exceptional memory, has gone missing and famed detective Lillian Pentecost and her crackerjack assistant Willowjean 'Will' Parker have been hired to track her down. But the New York City of 1947 can be a dangerous place, and there's no shortage of people who might like to get ahold of what's in Bodine's head. Does her disappearance have to do with the high-profile law firm whose secrets she still keeps; the...