In 1650, while Robert, a young medical student, steels himself to assist with her dissection, twenty-two-year-old housemaid Anne Green recalls her life as she lies in her coffin, presumed dead after being hanged for murdering her child that was, in fact, stillborn.

"North Carolina, 1960s. Lorraine has it all-the boyfriend, the good grades, the white picket fence, the ambition to become the first woman astronaut. But when she-the darling girl-next-door-becomes pregnant, she learns that love is conditional and ambition has its limits. In an effort to hide their daughter's secret shame, her parents send her away to a maternity home-a common solution for "wayward" girls during that time period. Lorraine soon realizes...

In 1937 Ireland, unwed mothers were crimnals and giving birth was a considered a crime. Mary Margaret Joyce is one such child, lucky enough to have survived the harsh, cruel conditions of Certified Industrial School Saint Thomas, in Ballinasloe.

Told in two voices, Luli and Yun, raised in an orphanage to age sixteen, work together in a factory until Yun, pregnant, disappears and Luli must confront the dangers of the outside world to find her. Includes facts about China's One-Child Policy and its effects.

"1960, New York City: College student Rita Klein is a pioneering woman in the new field of computer programming--until she unexpectedly becomes pregnant. At the Hudson Home for Unwed Mothers, social workers pressure her into surrendering her baby for adoption. Rita is struggling to get on with her life when she meets Jacob Nassy, a charming yet troubled man from the Netherlands who is traumatized by his childhood experience of being separated from...