As a child in Spain, Puri always knew her passion for chocolate was inherited from her father. After his death that she learns of something else she’s inherited—a cocoa estate in Ecuador. Eager to claim her birthright, she and her husband Cristóbal set out across the Atlantic Ocean. Though freed from the rules that women are expected to follow, Puri confronts other challenges at the estate—newfound siblings, hidden affairs, and her father’s dark secrets.
Henry sails to America in 1848 to escape the famine in Ireland, only to face anti-immigrant prejudice. He heads to Virginia, seeking work as a traveling blacksmith on the prosperous plantations. Sold to Jubilee Plantation, Sarah must navigate its intricate hierarchy, but now an enigmatic blacksmith is promising her freedom. Enslaved at the same plantation, Maple is desperate to return home. With Sarah’s arrival, she sees her chance to be reunited at last with her family—but at what cost?
The Vietnam War is raging and the country is reeling from racial turmoil. So why does César enlist in the navy? He is on the run from a sociopathic gangster who has now turned on him. When he is deployed aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, racial tensions are moving quickly toward violence. César’s ever-growing sense of honor forces him to make moral decisions he never knew he was capable of. It’s a fortitude he will desperately need.
In the dense forests of North Carolina, Rae Lynn Cobb and her husband, Warren, run a small turpentine farm together. When Warren falls victim to his own negligence, Rae Lynn disguises herself as a man named “Ray” and heads to the only place she can think of that might offer anonymity—a turpentine camp in Georgia named Swallow Hill. But she will have to come to terms with her past before she can seize the chance to begin again.
Harmony is disrupted when Emmitt’s search for a more meaningful life in Japan leads him to quit an unsatisfying job at a local university. In the fallout, he finds himself helping his mother-in-law translate Kanazawa’s most famous author, Izumi Kyoka, into English. Emmitt becomes drawn into the mysterious death thirty years prior of a mutual friend of Mirai’s parents. When he climbs the mountain where the man died, he learns the somber truth, and discovers what the future holds for him.
Fifteen years after their brother, Jakob, vanished on a family camping trip, Evie Shao, and her sister, Kass, are no longer on speaking terms. Kass became the rock of the family. Evie traded academics to pursue alien conspiracy theories. When Evie’s UFO network uncovers a new event, she learns that her brother is back. If they want to help him, Kass and Evie are going to have to fix their issues, and fast. Because the FBI is after him, and possibly an entire space armada, too.
Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, and from the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events. The ripples of the Great War are still being felt, and the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her homeland almost at the moment of her birth. She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy.
Lenore Bennett is heading to NYU in the fall with a scarlet U (for “undeclared”) written across her chest. Her parents always remind her that Black kids don’t have the luxury of figuring it out as they go, but it’s a lot of pressure when Lenore’s not even sure of her own dreams. But as she gets to know a hopeless romantic, golden boy on a post-graduation Mediterranean cruise, Lenore may find something else she’s been looking for: love.
A young girl named Jade is sold by her family to Miss Silver’s courtesan school. When she befriends an orphan boy named JungHo, who scrapes together a living begging on the streets of Seoul, they form a deep friendship. As they come of age, JungHo is swept up in the revolutionary fight for independence, and Jade becomes a sought-after performer. Soon Jade must decide whether she will risk everything for the one who would do the same for her.