"In 1486, Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a family of glassblowers in Murano, Italy. As a woman, she is not meant to blow glass--but when her father dies, she teaches herself to make beads in secret, and her work becomes the cornerstone of the Rosso family fortunes. Skipping like a stone through the centuries, we follow Orsola and her family as they live through creative triumph and heartbreaking loss, from a plague rearing its head over Venice...

Forced to leave England and struggling with illness in the wake of a family tragedy, Quaker Honor Bright is forced to rely on strangers in the harsh landscape of 1850 Ohio and is compelled to join the Underground Railroad network to help runaway slaves escape to freedom.

Growing up fascinated with the fossils she collected on the beach, Mary Anning blossomed into a skillful amateur archaeologist. When she discovers an intriguing fossilized skeleton, townspeople and religious authorities react viciously. Barred from the scientific community and in love with an unavailable man, Mary turns to Elizabeth Philpot, a London exile, for friendship. Together, they look to make their way in the evolving nineteenth century through...