Vivian Howe, author of thirteen beach novels and mother of three nearly grown children, is killed in a hit-and-run car accident while jogging near her home on Nantucket. In the Beyond, she's assigned to a Person named Martha, who allows Vivi to watch what happens below for one last summer. Vivi also is granted three 'nudges' to change the outcome of events on earth. Daughter Willa is on her third miscarriage; daughter Carson partying until all hours,...

Taking chances is part of life, but when you bet your future against the odds, it's a high-risk game. Kate Madison's stylish resale shop has been a big SoHo success, supporting her and her four kids since her husband's untimely death. Now they are grown and ready to forge lives of their own. And they all choose to play against the odds, to their mother's dismay. Isabelle, a dedicated attorney, is in line to make partner at her Wall Street firm when...

"A senior partner at a prestigious New York law firm, Kate Morgan couldn't be prouder of her three grown children. Tamara, Anthony, and Claire all went to great schools, chose wonderful career paths, and would have made their father proud. A single mother for years after the death of her husband, Kate keeps a tight rein on her family, her career, and even her own emotions, never once asking herself if she truly knows her children . . . or if her hopes...

Ardeevin, County Clare, Ireland. 1980. When her oldest brother Dan announces he will enter the priesthood, young Hanna watches her mother howl in agony and retreat to her room. In the years that follow, the Madigan children leave one by one: Dan, not a priest, for the frenzy of New York under the shadow of AIDS; Constance for a hospital in Limerick, where petty antics follow simple tragedy; Emmet for the backlands of Mali, where he learns the fragility...

Hannah Legare finds herself back in her hometown, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, as her marriage, business, and life in San Francisco crumble. She soon begins to puzzle over an old mystery: her father Buzz's mysterious disappearance more than 20 years earlier. Hannah retraces old ground, hoping to glean insights from the recollections of her mother, stepfather, brother, and family friends. Yet most residents of the town prefer to remember Buzz...

Margaret Maguire, a widow and grandmother home from the hospital in time for Christmas, is no longer able to ignore the consequences of having married an imperious and arrogant man. Despite her efforts to be a good wife and mother in small-town Iowa, her adult children are now strangers to one another, past hope of reconciliation. Margaret's granddaughter could be the one to break the cycle, but she can't do it without Margaret's help. It's time to...

They died in each other's arms, but their secrets did not die with them. Shocking truths about their past are uncovered through the Wednesday letters.