Atlas has lost her way. In a last-ditch effort to pull her life together, she’s working on a community service program rehabbing trails in the Western Sierras. The only plus is that the days are so exhausting that Atlas might just be tired enough to forget that this was one of her dad’s favorite places in the world. Before cancer stole him from her life, that is. Using real names is forbidden on the trail. So Atlas becomes Maps, and with her team—Books, Sugar, Junior, and King—she heads into the wilderness.

All Samantha wanted was to move back to New York and pursue her music, which was difficult enough being a Chinese girl in Missouri, 1849. Then her fate takes a turn for the worse after a tragic accident leaves her with nothing and she breaks the law in self-defense. With help from Annamae, a runaway slave she met at the scene of her crime, the two flee town for the unknown frontier. But life on the Oregon Trail is unsafe for two girls.

When Rivkah Milmanovitch arrives at Ellis Island, her husband is not waiting for her as promised. Alone and pregnant, she makes her way to the Lower East Side tenement of an old friend. Lottie Aarons, whose husband went out for a newspaper and never returned, takes Rivkah in and they work side-by-side in dispiriting sweatshops. Rivkah gives birth to a daughter, Mimi, determined that her child will have a better life in America.

For Jin Haldar, this life is nothing new—ever since her father died in a diving accident, she’s barely made ends meet for her and her younger sister, Thara. Enter Bhili: a drifter who offers Jin and Thara the score of a lifetime—a massive stash of gold hidden in the sunken ruins of Las Vegas. Jin knows it’s too dangerous. She stopped diving after her father’s accident. But when her sister decides to go, Jin’s left with only one choice: to go with her.

Yash is the best athlete at Robinette Middle School—so good, in fact, that he’s already playing on the high school’s JV sports teams. Imagine his shock when he learns that his JV practices have kept him from earning a state-mandated credit for eighth-grade PE. To graduate, he has to take Physical Education Equivalency—PEE, also known as “Slugfest”—in summer school.

Seven generations of women in Susana Prather’s family have been lost to the Georgia swamp behind her house. The morning after her eighteenth birthday, she awakens soaked with water, with no memory of sleepwalking. No matter how she tries to stop it, she’s pulled from her safe bed night after night, haunted by her own family history and legacy. Now, the truth feels unavoidable: it’s only a matter of time before she loses her mind and the swamp becomes her grave.

Liana Sarkar lives and breathes music, hoping to follow in the footsteps of her A&R coordinator father. Maybe if she succeeds, he’ll finally give her the time of day instead of drowning himself in work to distract from the grief of her mother’s passing. When Liana accidentally sabotages an up-and-coming local band, Third Eye, she makes it her mission to steer them towards success—without them discovering her role in their setback. But as she gets closer to Third Eye, especially their enigmatic leader Skyler Moon, it becomes harder to hide the truth.

The best-known secret in the city, Jane is an underground health clinic composed entirely of women helping women, empowering them to embrace their futures by offering reproductive counseling and safe, illegal abortions. Veronica, Jane’s founder, prides herself on the services she has provided to thousands of women, yet the price of others’ freedom is that she leads a double life. When she’s not at Jane, Veronica plays the role of a conventional housewife—a juggling act that becomes even more difficult during her own high-risk pregnancy.

Frederieke Teitler and her older sister, Astra, live in a house, in a city, in a world divided. Their father ran out on them when Rieke was only six, leaving their mother a wreck and their grandfather as their only stable family. He’s done his best to provide for them and shield them from antisemitism, but now, seven years later, being a Jew has become increasingly dangerous, even in their beloved home of Czernowitz, long considered a safe haven for Jewish people.

When a terrible drought struck William Kamkwamba's tiny village in Malawi, his family lost all of the season's crops, leaving them with nothing to eat and nothing to sell. William began to explore science books in his village library, looking for a solution. There, he came up with the idea that would change his family's life forever: he could build a windmill. Made out of scrap metal and old bicycle parts, William's windmill brought electricity to his home and helped his family pump the water they needed to farm the land.

It is 1944. A teenager named Rudolf (Rudi) Vrba has made up his mind. After barely surviving nearly two years in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, he knows he must escape. Even if death is more likely. Rudi has learned the terrible secret hidden behind the heavily guarded fences of concentration camps across Nazi-occupied Europe: the methodical mass killing of Jewish prisoners. As trains full of people arrive daily, Rudi knows that the murders won’t stop until he reveals the truth to the world―and that each day that passes means more lives are lost.

Regent Academy has a long and storied history in Winslow, Vermont, as does the forest that surrounds it. The school is known for molding teens into leaders, but its history is far more nefarious. Seventeen-year-old Douglas Jones wants nothing to do with Regent's king-making; he’s just trying to survive. But then a student is murdered and, for some reason, by the next day no one remembers him having ever existed, except for Douglas and the groundskeeper's son, Everett Everley.

Chelsea Higgins is doing just fine. She’s heading into the holidays at the helm of a thriving dog training business, and she’s got a mellow senior dog at home to keep her warm at the end of the day. What more could she need? Enter certified gym bro Andrew Gibson: Chelsea’s former nemesis, and now the newest neighbor in her business complex, who also wants to expand into the vacant space Chelsea’s been eyeing for months. Who cares if it’s the season of joy? Let the turf war begin. When an unfortunate run-in with Andrew’s lawless dog leaves Chelsea with a bum wrist, the two strike a deal.

Eddie Grant is happy with her life and her work as a personal assistant to Dinah Lavender, one of the most famous and renowned romance authors in the business. But being a spectator to notoriety and glamour isn’t as fulfilling as she once thought. Thankfully, Eddie has the perfect excuse for a vacation: Her hardworking younger sister, Barrett, is opening her gift shop on Memorial Day weekend, and could use all the help she can get. But going home to the beautiful island of Nantucket means facing the family’s difficult past.

Thea Mottram is having a bad month. She’s been let go from her office job with no notice - and to make matters even worse, her husband of nearly 20 years has decided to leave her for one of her friends. Bewildered and completely lost, Thea doesn’t know what to do. But when she learns that a distant great uncle in Scotland has passed away, leaving her his home and a hefty antique book collection, she decides to leave Sussex for a few weeks. Escaping to a small coastal town where no one knows her seems to be exactly what she needs.