When Sophie Weiss boards the SS St Louis, she has no reason to stay in Germany. The Nazis have taken everything from her, and her only hope is escape. But when she meets fellow Jewish refugees Rosa, Hannah and Rachel on board, the friendship they form gives Sophie hope that there can be happiness in her future, after all.

As I stare at the ultrasound, my eyes fill with tears. My husband squeezes my hand, thinking they are tears of happiness. How do I tell him they aren’t? When I meet the love of my life, Mark, I have everything I ever dreamed of. Our lives are perfect, until we find out I can’t give him the one thing he truly wants—a child. There is a small glimmer of hope. We could use a surrogate. But as the doctor explains that we can’t use my eggs, my heart breaks all over again.

Gracie Thompson has a job, a loving family, a twin brother who drives her insane and a great friend. A chance meeting introduces her to the love of her life. But the storm clouds are gathering, Europe is teetering on the verge of war and threatening to destroy everything Gracie holds dear. When war arrives her family are split up, her younger siblings evacuated, her brothers join up to serve, her boyfriend, Charlie, is in daily danger and her life is threatened.

Berlin, 1944. ‘It is a great honour to have you here, Herr Hitler.’ Lili doesn’t stumble over the lie, her hand steady as she pours champagne. Everything must be perfect, no one can suspect a thing… Lili Rodenberg and her husband Marius run the Edel, Berlin’s most glamorous hotel. For its wealthy guests, it is an escape from the destruction outside, with its elegant piano bar and fine amber brandy. But Lili is Jewish, a secret she is terrified will end in tragedy for her and their beloved little girl.

Ania hears the explosion of gunshots before she sees the Nazi soldiers approach her beloved home. Her family don’t have time to run, but she does. Hiding nearby, she listens to her sister’s screams and – stroking the red ribbon she keeps tied around her wrist – she begins to plot her revenge… Taunted her whole life for being smarter than anyone else in the village, now living in war-torn Poland, being governed by Nazis who think Poles are subhuman and women only good for one thing… Ania now only has her wits to rely on, if she's going to survive.

An orphan who spent her youth without a true home, Marion Hoxton found in the Great War something other than destruction. She discovered a chance to belong. As a member of the Women’s Royal Naval Service—the Wrens—Marion gained sisters. She found purpose in her work as a motorcycle dispatch rider assigned to train and deliver carrier pigeons to the front line. And despite the constant threat of danger, she and her childhood friend Eddie began to dream of a future together. Until the battle that changed everything.

1904: Ellen Copley is still a child when she leaves behind the sooty rail yards of Glasgow and crosses the Atlantic Ocean with a heart full of dreams. Yet within weeks of their arrival in America, her father has disappeared - leaving Ellen with resentful relatives, feeling alone and scared for her future. But then her kind Aunt Rose invites Ellen to stay with her large family in their rambling house on beautiful Amherst Island, which nestles like a jewel in the blue waters of Lake Ontario.

Rome, 1943. With the fall of Italy's Fascist government and the Nazi regime occupying the streets of Rome, British ballerina Julia Bradbury is stranded and forced to take refuge at a hospital on Tiber Island. But when she learns of a deadly sickness sweeping through the quarantine wards--a fake disease known only as Syndrome K--she is drawn into one of the greatest cons in history. Alongside hospital staff, friars of the adjoining church, and two Allied medics, Julia risks everything to rescue Jewish Italians from the deadly clutches of the Holocaust.

Holding the faded postcard in her trembling hands, Mia begins to read the one story her grandmother could never tell her, revealing a secret that will change her own life forever....

November, 1941. She’s never even seen the ocean before, but Eva Cassidy has her reasons for making the crossing to Hawaii, and they run a lot deeper than escaping a harsh Michigan winter. Newly enlisted as an Army Corps nurse, Eva is stunned by the splendor she experiences aboard the steamship SS Lurline; even more so by Lt. Clark Spencer, a man she is drawn to but who clearly has secrets of his own. But Eva’s past - and the future she’s trying to create - means that she’s not free to follow her heart.

Georgeanna “Georgey” Woolsey isn’t meant for the world of lavish parties and the demure attitudes of women of her stature. So when war ignites the nation, Georgey follows her passion for nursing during a time when doctors considered women on the battlefront a bother. In proving them wrong, she and her sister Eliza venture from New York to Washington, DC, to Gettysburg and witness the unparalleled horrors of slavery as they become involved in the war effort.

Working in a museum under a false identity is Brigitte’s only hope. Until she meets Isabelle Valette, who confides in hushed tones that she is part of the Resistance. And when her new friend tells her of a train leaving Paris that can take children to safety, Brigitte knows her daughter must be on it, even if it breaks her heart. But getting Sophie onto the train is dangerous. If they are caught smuggling a Jewish child out of Paris, they will be killed. And with the enemy closing in, can Brigitte get her beloved daughter to safety before it is too late?

I never expected to have to uproot my family to go live in my parents’ isolated cottage on Lost Lake. It’s twenty miles to the nearest town, an insignificant speck in endless pine forests. Nobody’s lived here for a decade. Now, I pick up a rusty pail from its nest of autumn leaves and turn to my daughter. Suddenly, I recall how I used to help my own mother pick wild strawberries up here as a little girl. Maybe, this isn’t a punishment. Maybe this place will be the making of our family.

Just like the whole town of Starr’s Fall, thinks Laurie Ellis – as she and her beloved dog Max head to collect the store keys. Maybe she has seen better days, too, but she’s certainly ready for a new start—and to leave her past behind. Still Laurie wonders whether she made a terrible mistake in coming to lovable but shabby Starr’s Fall. Will she even find customers for her pet store and bakery, never mind a community to welcome and accept her?

Elisabeth Eidenbenz left Switzerland in 1937 to aid children orphaned during the Spanish Civil War. Now, her work has led her to France, where she's determined to provide expectant mothers and their unborn children a refuge amid one of the worst humanitarian crises of the twentieth century. Desperate to escape the invasion of Franco's Fascist troops, Isabel Dueñas becomes one of many Spanish patriots fleeing their country. She leaves behind her husband as he fights for democracy, and she seeks asylum in a refugee camp across the border in France.