When her husband's unexpected death bestows his fortune on a male heir, Sylvia tries to marry her daughter off to a wealthy husband to maintain their lifestyle, but is stopped by her mother-in-law, who wants more for her granddaughter.

At the center of the tale is Silvio, who in his younger years fled the boredom of the village for of travel and adventure, returns to live in a farmer's hovel in the middle of the woods. Much to his family's dismay, Silvio is content with his solitude. But when he attends the wedding of his favorite young cousin, Silvio begins to be drawn back into the complicated life of this small town. As the narration unfolds, we are given an intimate picture...

When 53-year-old Eliza Whitney loses both her beloved husband and her high-powered job in the same month, she's uncertain what the next chapter of her life will look like. Then her estranged father's widow contacts her and asks her to come to Sanibel Island to help settle his affairs. Eliza sees the trip to a place called Shellseeker Beach as a distraction from her loss, and maybe a way to get some closure on the difficult relationship she'd had with...

The Hunter Valley, 1880. Evie Ludgrove loves to chart the landscape around her home--hardly surprising since she grew up in the shadow of her father's obsession with the great Australian explorer Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt. So when an advertisement appears in The Bulletin magazine offering a thousand-pound reward for proof of where Leichhardt met his fate, Evie is determined to use her father's papers to unravel the secret. But when Evie sets out to prove...