Elizabeth Berg

After sending their men off to fight in the war, sisters Kitty and Louise Heaney join their flirtatious younger sister, Tish, in writing letters to servicemen overseas, in a study of life during World War II from the perspective of the young men on the battlefield and the women left behind on the home front.

We meet Aurore Dupin as she is leaving her estranged husband, a loveless marriage, and her family’s estate in the French countryside to start a new life in Paris. There, she gives herself a new name—George Sand—and pursues her dream of becoming a writer, embracing an unconventional and even scandalous lifestyle.

Returning home for the annual family reunion, Laura Bartone and her brother, Steve, are stunned by their sister, Caroline, and her allegations of shocking behavior on the part of their mother, and are forced to come to terms with the truth and lies within their family, as well as painful cycle of denial, blame, repression, and forgiveness.

Cecilia Ross is looking for a change. She has decided to take time off from her job as a successful motivational speaker and sell her home. She moves in to a beautiful old house in St. Paul, Minnesota, complete with a big front porch, a wild garden, a chef's kitchen--and three roommates. The four women are different ages, but all are feeling restless, and want to take a roadtrip to find again the people and things they miss. One woman wants to connect...

It is the summer of 1964. In Tupelo, Mississippi, the town of Elvis's birth, tensions are mounting over civil-rights demonstrations occurring ever more frequently--and violently--across the state. But in Paige Dunn's small, ramshackle house, there are more immediate concerns. Challenged by the effects of the polio she contracted during her last month of pregnancy, Paige is nonetheless determined to live as normal a life as possible and to raise her...

For the past six months, Arthur Moses's days have looked the same: He tends to his rose garden and to Gordon, his cat, then rides the bus to the cemetery to visit his beloved late wife for lunch. The last thing Arthur would imagine is for one unlikely encounter to utterly transform his life. Eighteen-year-old Maddy Harris is an introspective girl who visits the cemetery to escape the other kids at school. One afternoon she joins Arthur--a gesture...

Ginny Young crosses the country for a reluctant reunion with the mother she has not seen in thirty-five years. During the long hours of her flight, she returns in memory to the summer when she turned twelve and her family turned inside out ...

The story of first love featuring Katie, 13. When her father, a widowed army colonel, moves to another town, Katie meets Jimmy, 23, a garage attendant, and she falls in love with him. Unfortunately Jimmy is married and a father, and though he likes Katie very much he is not about to leave his family. A tale of platonic love, narrated by Katie. By the author of The Pull of the Moon.

Shortly after she turns 50, a woman runs away to find herself. As she drives across the country following the moon, Nan keeps a journal and writes letters, appraising her husband and her daughter of her progress, though not of her romance.

An anthology of short fiction that explores the lives of women breaking free of the conventions that control their lives, in a collection that includes "Returns and Exchanges," "Over the Hill and Into the Woods," and the title story, about a woman who goes on a happiness binge after ditching Weight Watchers.