Iris Greenfeder, ABD (All But Dissertation), feels the “buts” are taking over her life: all but published, all but a professor, all but married. Yet the sudden impulse to write a story about her mother, Katherine Morrissey, leads to a shot at literary success. The piece recounts an eerie Irish fairy tale her mother used to tell her at bedtime—and nestled inside it is the sad story of her death. It captures the attention of her mother’s...

When Lily Owens flees her father's peach farm in South Carolina with Rosaleen, the black housekeeper, they are taken in by three beekeeping sisters.

When Hattie receives an SOS call in Paris from her eleven-year-old niece, the decision to return to Canada is slam-dunk easy, because she's just been dumped by her boyfriend. But when she arrives back, her sister, Min, is on her way to the psychiatric ward, and Hattie is left to take care of Min's children, Thebes and Logan. When she realizes that this may become a permanent arrangement, Hattie hatches a plan. Without much more than an old address...