At loose ends after the devastating death of her mother, Una Richardson responds to an advertisement for a ladies' companion, a position that leads her into the wealthy, secluded world of Mrs. Elspeth McKenzie. But Elspeth's home isn't the comforting haven it seems. Kathryn, her cold and bitter daughter, resents Una's presence. More disturbing is evidence suggesting two girls lived here before her. What happened to the young women? Why won't the McKenzie's...

"At an age when she’d rather be making her own way in the world, an unnamed young woman finds herself moving to a small town at the seaside to care for her uncle. He’s a disabled war veteran with questionable habits, prone to drinking, gorging, and hoarding—not to mention the occasional excursion down into the plumbing, where he might disappear for days at a time. When the world starts to shut down, Uncle and his niece become closer than ever....

"Every family has its fault lines, and when Maggie gets a call from the ER in Maryland where her older sister lives, the cracks start to appear. Ginny, her sugar-loving and diabetic older sister with intellectual disabilities, has overdosed on strawberry Jell-O. Maggie knows Ginny really can’t live on her own, so she brings her sister and her occasionally vicious dog to live near her in upstate New York. Their other sister, Betsy, is against the...

"Ernst is a gruff seventy-year-old Red Army veteran from Ukraine who landed, almost by accident, in Israel after World War II. A retired investment advisor, he lives alone (his first wife and baby daughter were killed by the Nazis; he divorced his shrewish second wife several years ago) and spends his time laboring over his unpublished novels. Irena is the unmarried thirty-six-year-old daughter of Holocaust survivors who has been taking care of Ernst...