"A novel about one classic film actress's relentless rise to the top--the risks she took, the loves she lost, and the long-held secrets the public could never imagine"-- Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life, and chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job. Summoned to Evelyn's Upper East Side apartment, Monique listens as Evelyn unfurls her...

This haunting novel bridges two centuries, two mother-daughter relationships, and two tragic love stories in a small town called Dundee on the coast of Maine.

A writer visits his retired grandparents in Florida to document their experience during the infamous siege of Leningrad. His grandmother won't talk about it, but his grandfather reluctantly consents. The result is the captivating odyssey of two young men trying to survive against desperate odds.

In Washington State, a widowed doctor suffering from cancer takes a hunting trip, the real purpose of which is to commit suicide, which he will masquerade as an accident. But Dr. Ben Givens' resolve is tested by several events which reaffirm the joy of living--he cheats death by fighting off wolves and helps a girl give birth.

Grace Bradley went to work at Riverton House as a servant when she was just a girl, before the First World War. For years her life was inextricably tied up with the Hartford family, most particularly the two daughters, Hannah and Emmeline. In the summer of 1924, at a glittering society party held at the house, a young poet shot himself. The only witnesses were Hannah and Emmeline and only they--and Grace--know the truth. In 1999, when Grace is ninety-eight...

Centuries ago, two 'sworn sisters' are isolated by their families, but stay connected through a secret language written in the folds of a white silk fan. Now in modern-day Shanghai, their descendents must draw inspiration from the past as they struggle to maintain their own eternal bond in the face of life's complications. What unfolds are two stories, generations apart, but everlasting in their universal notion of love, hope and friendship.

Robert MacIver is an 80-year-old war historian, a proud Scot long resident stateside, dying slowly and alone in an ancient house in the woods on Cape Cod. His beloved wife, Margaret, has died recently in the same house, and MacIver sees no reason to linger. He is not, as the famous Dylan Thomas poem has it, raging against his going, but neither is he going gentle, though rage and gentleness are the novel's key concepts. Instead, he chooses a middle...