Stumped by a magazine assignment to write about his own uneventful life, a man visits his retired grandparents in Florida to document their experience during the infamous siege of Leningrad. Reluctantly, his grandfather commences a story that will take him almost a week to tell: an odyssey of two young men determined to survive, against desperate odds, a mission in which cold, hunger, and the Russian authorities prove as dangerous as the invading...

Old man Fookwire finds his yard's tranquility deeply disturbed after his new neighbor's cat, Muffins, begins to terrorize the squirrels, but the squirrels have a plan to put a stop to Muffins.

To relieve the boredom of a long, hot summer, Mr. Putter and his cat Tabby join their fun-loving neighbor, Mrs. Teaberry, and her mischievous dog Zeke on an adventurous sightseeing boat cruise.

In 1838, Arabella Godwin and her brother, Lewis, are orphaned and sent to live on their aunt's desolate farm in upstate New York. Time and again she will be broken and remade. She will bear a gambler's child, build a fortune, commit murder, leave a trail of aliases in her wake and sacrifice almost everything for the man whose love she cannot bear to lose. Her destiny takes her to Gold Rush California... where she disappears.

In a novel that moves back and forth between the Soviet Union during World War II and modern-day America, Marina, an elderly Russian woman, recalls vivid images of her youth during the height of the siege of Leningrad.

A curmudgeonly old man tries to connect with his nursing home assistant and convince him that he has lived hundreds of past lives searching for the love of his life, but begins to wonder if it all really happened.

Allison runs away and, in what she thinks is an abandoned house, finds a home with Marla, an elderly woman with dementia who believes her to be an old friend named Toffee.

"In the summer of 1942, twenty-one-year-old Anne Calloway, newly engaged, sets off to serve in the Army Nurse Corps on the Pacific island of Bora-Bora. More exhilarated by the adventure of a lifetime than she ever was by her predictable fianc,� she is drawn to a mysterious soldier named Westry, and their friendship soon blossoms into hues as deep as the hibiscus flowers native to the island. Under the thatched roof of an abandoned beach bungalow,...

For years Sarah Lindeman, now in her 80s, has carried out a special tradition over the 12 days of Christmas. On her small plastic Yuletide tree she hangs an ornament each day. Then she sings her song and reflects on her life's true love. This year, Sarah notices a young nurse listening, and in her recognizes pain and longing. Sarah prays that through her story, she can ease this young woman's sorrow and help her realize the importance of God's gift...

A chance encounter in a nursing home leads to an unexpected friendship between a dowdy housewife and a spry octagenarian who tells her the story of a fiercely independent woman half a century ago, inspiring the housewife to change her life, often with hilarious results