Sarah Brennan is a hockey player in the new professional women's league, but it's her mind she wants to exercise when she enrolls in a university class on Irish literature. Professor Claire Joyce is no fan of pro athletes, especially after a failed marriage to one. Unfortunately her ten-year-old daughter adores hockey, and her idol happens to be none other than Sarah Brennan. Falling in love with someone who barely tolerates sports and athletes finally forces Sarah, at thirty-six, to admit that her career is in overtime, and to consider what life might look like after hockey.

Edyth grew up in a quiet village with a loving family, before losing everything she holds dear in the blink of an eye. Suddenly sent to live in a priory and work with ancient texts, Edyth must come to terms with her new life and the gifts she discovers in herself. But outside the priory, something much worse is coming. With the reappearance of a boy from her past and the ominous Great Plague creeping closer and closer to the priory, it will be up to Edyth to rise above it all and save herself.

Annie Sharpe’s spark for life has fizzled out. Her kids are grown up, her restaurant is doing just fine on its own, and her 26-year marriage has come to an unceremonious end. Untethered for the first time in her adult life, she finds a winter guardian position in a historic seaside home and decides to leave her city life behind for a brand new beginning.

Johanna Neumann, a once-acclaimed pianist, is forced to leave her high-society life in Berlin to support her military husband, the newly appointed Kommandant of Erstein. With her son enlisted in the Hitler Youth and her dreams of music silenced by the clamor of conflict, she grapples with the harsh realities of her new existence in a place where she is neither welcome nor trusted. Haunted by loss and loneliness and disillusioned by her husband’s transformation, she yearns for an end to the war so she can go back to her beloved homeland before her daughter is recruited into the Nazi regime.

Haylee Coleman can't lose another job. Flat-out broke, she's desperate to turn her life around, pay her bills, and keep her job. But more than that, she's found a place she might belong for the first time in her life. She can make a difference here. If only Cherish would like her. If only Cherish could help her figure out how not to get fired. If only Cherish wasn't so distracting. With a bark that rivals the boss, Cherish Barkley lives and breathes her boss. She's loved Febe Aarts for decades. When the annual gala for the Holbrook Foundation looms, Cherish begs for Haylee's help.