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Desired by many, cardsharp Evelyn Starr Johnson will go to any lengths to recover the treasure map stolen from her murdered foster parents. It's her deal, and she antes up the only thing she has left--her innocence.

Shannon Conner grew up in a Colorado cabin, isolated from the world. Now, she lives as a lonely young widow in the cold mountains. Forced to fend for herself, Shannon valiantly attempts to deflect the harassment of local bullies, but she is grossly outnumbered.

Brutally efficient judge Isaac C. Parker is determined to rid Arkansas and the Indian Territory of all manner of criminals. But his quest for justice and liberal use of the gallows earn him just as many friends as enemies and take a toll on every aspect of his life.

Billy is 16 years old when he critically injures a henchman of infamous crook Boss Tweed during the 1863 New York draft riots. Running for his life, Billy heads for the frontier and finds work playing piano in various saloons. In his travels he crosses paths with such legendary figures as Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Chief Crazy Horse, "Wild Bill" Hickok, and even literary legend Oscar Wilde. Eventually, Billy finds himself in Hollywood as the film industry begins to explode.

Just before the French were expelled from Nova Scotia early in the 18th century, two women, one French, one English, became as sisters. Now their daughters Anne and Nicole are just as close, although one lives in England and the other in America. But when they each receive a letter from Nova Scotia, they are suddenly called on a journey back to their families' beloved homeland.

In 18th-century England, spiritual sisters Anne and Nicole find themselves facing different roads into the future. While Anne is settling into mannered British life, she prays for best friend Nicole, who is now planning a voyage to Boston to take control of her uncle's landholdings. Heading into the seething heart of the American Revolutionary War, Nicole is ill-prepared for the grave dangers and ravages of war that confront her.

"In the midst of the Irish famine, Johanna flees one disaster - only to land in another. After a massive potato famine strikes Ireland, thirteen-year-old Johanna Leary flees to Canada with her family. But typhus and other illnesses plague the 'coffin ships,' so named for the staggering number of immigrants who died enroute. One by one Johanna loses the members of her family - first her baby brother on the journey over, then her mother in the Grosse Isle fever sheds where sick passengers are quarantined when they reach the port of Québec, and her father soon after.

"Duty and love collide on the arid plains of central South Africa. Cathleen Harrington leaves her home in Ireland in 1919 to travel to South Africa and marry the fiance she has not seen for five years. Isolated and estranged in a harsh landscape, she finds solace in her diary and the friendship of her housemaid's daughter, Ada. Cathleen recognises in her someone she can love and respond to in a way that she cannot with her own husband and daughter.

For two traumatic days, Livvy Higgs is besieged by a series of small heart attacks while the ghost of her younger self leads her back through a past devastated by lies and secrets. Tending to Livvy during her illness is her young next-door neighbour, Gen, a single mother, social-work student, and part-time drug dealer. Overnight, a violent scene embroils the two in each other's lives in a manner that will entwine them forever.

Thirteen-year old Polly is following in her sister's footsteps to a boarding school in Victoria. Will her sister's new secret tear her family apart again?