"Paris, summer of 2010. Zahira is a Moroccan prostitute late in her career whose generosity is her way of defying her humiliation and misery. Her friend Aziz, a male prostitute, admires her and emulates her. Aziz is transitioning from his past as a man into the womanhood of his future, and asks Zahira to help him choose a name for himself as a woman. Motjaba is an Iranian revolutionary, a refugee in Paris, a gay man fleeing his country at the end...

Moll is a headstrong young woman whose unfortunate social position leaves her in the most dire of circumstances. A destitute and hapless outcast, Moll is forced into a lifestyle that could easily break her spirit. But summoning courage in the face of adversity, Moll strives to triumph against overwhelming odds ... until the day she meets a very special man--one who promised to change her life forever.

"'Some years ago, in Dodge, I was a sporting woman. I didn't mind whoring-it can be good work in the right house-but it demands a great deal of keeping still, and I'm one of those itchy, fidgety sorts who's always looking out the window or glancing toward the door, so it was only a matter of time until I had to move on.' In the Spring of 1877, Bridget-sixteen years old and already disillusioned after caring for her alcoholic father-is orphaned while...

In November 1888, the specter of Jack the Ripper instills fear in every woman who makes her living on the streets of London. But there are other monsters at large, those who shun fame and secretly claim their victims from among the city's most vulnerable . . . Options are few for unmarried mothers in Victorian England. To avoid stigma, many find lodging with "baby farmers"-women who agree to care for the infant, or find an adoptive family, in exchange...