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When a putrid odor fills the city during a heat wave, massive repairs to London's sewer system are called for. While most find the subterranean world a dark carnival of horrors, William May, a haunted survivor of the Crimean War, finds solace in the dim, dripping passageways. But after being implicated in a murder, William's sanity is called into question.

Tab and Tina, relatives of a founder of Ku Klux Klan, are whisked away to an interracial Civil Rights school one summer. There, they befriend both a black polio patient and the biracial daughter of a Yankee and a Civil Rights leader. Can the girls be saved from the racist traditions of their Alabama family?

Colin McElreath is getting married. He is giving up his status as a Free Fellow because he has sworn to protect the league and their secret work in the war with France. His bride-to-be, Gillian Davies is in trouble, so her father, the Baron, is using her impressive dowry and a little blackmail to secure a reputation. Honor, nobility, and chivalry may be Colin's first motives for marrying her, but his growing desire for his beautiful bride cannot be ignored.

In the lage 1830s, the Mexican War is winding down, but tensions between the Texans and the Comanches threaten the fledgling Texas Republic. Towns are being raided and hundreds of murdered settlers litter the countryside. Sam Houston himself sends Isaac Webb on a mission of peace with Captain Noak Smithwick. Isaac, eager for a truce, longs for a simpler life with the woman he loves, but he knows that his future is clouded by bloodshed and violence.

When her parents are killed in a raid, 11-year-old Helen Morrison and her younger sister Katy are kidnapped by a band of Comanches. Given the name Tehanita, Helen vows to maintain her white identity and clings tightly to her only possession--the dress she was wearing when captured. She is appalled by Katy's quick adjustment to her new home and family. Helen resists assimilation but she must make a decision. Should she become a woman of the People?

Larkin Stanton, orphaned at birth in 1845, is raised by his cousin, Arty Norton. Larkin and Arty's younger brother Hackley grow up surrounded by music and are as close as brothers. Larkin sings before he can talk, and Hackley's fiddle makes all feet want to dance. As they become men, both lose their hearts to pretty, redheaded Mary. But through this complex love and the wrenching destruction of the Civil War, Larkin learns the true meaning of the mournful ballads he has known all his life.

Young Irish American Saul Sullivan marries a beautiful Cherokee woman named Vine. As a mixed race couple, they weather a storm of prejudice, but eventually find acceptance with Saul's family. Then Saul must move away to another country for a year to find work. Taking advantage of his absence, Aaron, Saul's jealous younger brother, begins to make unwanted advances on Vine. The tragic violence to come will change all of their lives forever.

A year ago in 1815, Laura Gardeyne lost her dashing husband, Hal, in a riding accident. Now she must raise her young son at the Gardeyne estate, since he is heir to its fortune. But after Hal's brother fathers a male child, Laura realizes that he might do anything, even murder, to position his offspring as heir.

Randolph Aldridge travels to a snake-infested Cypress mill in Louisiana to find his brother Byron, a troubled veteran of World War I. Once there, Randolph finds that By is a shell of his former self--and that the murderous cartel controlling the mill's casino won't give them any peace.

In war-torn Asia and stricken Europe, men and women, still young but veterans of harsh experience, must reinvent their lives and expectations, and learn, from their past, to dream again. Some will fulfill their destinies, others will falter. At the center of the story, a brave and brilliant soldier find that survival and worldly achievement are not enough. His counterpart, a young girl living in occupied Japan and tending her dying brother, falls in love, and in the process discovers herself.