"In her first life, Ida Russell had been a painter. Five years ago, she had confidently walked the halls of Boston's most renowned Museum School, enrolling in art courses that were once deemed "unthinkable" for women, and showing a budding talent for watercolors. But no more. Ida Russell is now Ida Pease, resident of a seaside farm on Vineyard Haven, and wife to Ezra, a once-charming man who has become an inattentive and unreliable husband. Ezra runs...

It is 1805 and Mary Lambert has always felt safe among the deaf community of Chilmark on Martha's Vineyard where practically everyone communicates in a shared sign language, but recent events have shattered her life; her brother George has died, land disputes between English settlers and the Wampanoag people are becoming increasingly bitter, and a "scientist" determined to discover the origins of the islands' widespread deafness has decided she makes...

"As a young teacher on Martha's Vineyard, Mary Lambert feels restless and adrift. So when a league of missionaries invite her to travel abroad, she knows it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. Paris is home to a pioneering deaf school where she could meet its visionary instructors Jean Massieu and Laurent Clerc--and even bring back their methods to help advance formal deaf education in America! But the endeavor comes at a cost: The missionaries'...