It's easy to feel at home in Mitford, North Carolina. In these high, green hills, the air is pure, the village is charming, and the people are friendly. Yet, Father Tim, the bachelor rector, wants something more. Enter a dog the size of a sofa who moves in and won't go away. Add an attractive neighbor who begins wearing a path through the hedge. Now, stir in a lovable but unloved boy, a mystifying jewel theft, and a secret that's sixty years old....

In the opening entry, "Jeeves Exerts the Old Cerebellum," Bingo seeks help in persuading his wealthy guardian to accept his socially undesirable fiancee. Mabel the waitress is only the first in a succession of Bingo's romantic interests, which include a parson's niece, a Communist, and Bertie's own fiancee--among others. Eighteen connected stories trace Bingo and Bertie's shenanigans at home and abroad and introduce assorted Wooster relatives, from...

"Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn't spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy's childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy's life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two...

"Neva Bradley, a third-generation midwife, is determined to keep the details surrounding her own pregnancy--including the identity of the baby's father--hidden from her family and coworkers for as long as possible. Her mother Grace finds it impossible to let this secret rest. The more Grace prods, the tighter Neva holds to her story, and the more the lifelong differences between private, quiet Neva and open, gregarious Grace strain their relationship....

Twelve-year-old Frankie's brother will soon return to Georgia from Alaska to marry. Plotting to accompany the newlyweds on their honeymoon occupies much of Frankie's waking hours, while at the same time she is coping with the pressures of puberty and its effects on her body and mind.

Ginny Young is on a plane, en route to see her mother, whom she hasn't seen or spoken to for thirty-five years. She thinks back to the summer of 1958, when she and her sister, Sharla, were young girls. At that time,a series of dramatic events--beginning with the arrival of a mysterious and sensual next-door neighbor--divided the family, separating the sisters from their mother. Moving back and forth in time between the girl she once was and the...

Baltimore woman disappears during family vacation, declares the headline. Forty-year-old Delia Grinstead is last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing nothing more than a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To her husband and three almost-grown children, she has vanished without trace or reason. But for Delia, who feels like a tiny gnat buzzing around her family's edges, "walking away from it all"...

From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Breathing Lessons—Charlotte Emory has always lived a quiet, conventional life in Clarion, Maryland. She lives as simply as possible, and one day decides to simplify everything and leave her husband.
Her last trip to the bank throws Charlotte's life into an entirely different direction when a restless young man in a nylon jacket takes her hostage during the...

"The Powell brothers, Muir and Moody, are as different as Cain and Abel. Muir is an innocent, a shy young man with big dreams and not the slightest idea of what to do about them. Moody, the older and wilder brother--embittered by the death of his father, by years of fighting his mother, and by his jealousy of Muir's privileged place in the family--takes to moonshine and gambling and turns his anger on his brother. Muir escapes, hoping to find something--an...

"One summer in Seaside, steps away from the bustling boardwalk, the Dunne family faces an unknowable future and copes with loss through hard work and dark humor, sisterhood and friendship, romance and escape. Brian and Margot Dunne live in Seaside year-round, with their teenage daughters, Liz and Evy. The Dunnes run a real estate company, quickly turning over rental houses to keep a roof over their heads. Together the family must navigate the unimaginable...