After reading "Circe," I am hopefully optimistic about this retelling of the Greek legend of Achilles and the Trojan War. It follows Achilles and his close friend, Patroclus, as they join their countrymen in laying siege to the city of Troy to reclaim the kidnapped Helen of Sparta.

In Ceylon's royal city of Kandy, the king's elephant keeper is an esteemed position in court, but it is only reserved for males. When a daughter is born to the current keeper, her parents raise her as a boy to ensure the line of succession. When British colonists invade, Phera is finally allowed to live as herself, but when unspeakable acts of violence are committed against her people, she must also fight for survival. When she's drawn into an unexpected romance with a British physician, Phera is faced with another choice: love or hatred?

Jess has lost everything: her job, her apartment, and her son in a tragic accident. So she packs up what's left and moves to a small mountain town where she begins working as a caregiver to Lucy, an eccentric old woman rumored to be clairvoyant. But Jess isn't the only lost soul who's taken up residence in Lucy's home. There's Star, a teen runaway with a painful secret, and a little boy with heart-shaped stones.

Jane has hit rock bottom. So when she's offered a cottage to live in in exchange for tutoring a teenage girl, she accepts. But everything is not what it seems on the Rochester estate. Evan Rochester has been accused of murdering his wife but insists she drowned herself. While Jane has doubts, she still finds herself falling for him, and when a ghostly presence keeps appearing, she sets out to find the truth of what really happened that night.

Caprice, Ada, Maria, and Thea are four immigrant women trying to escape tradition in Boston. The four friends face family clashes, romantic entanglements, career struggles, and cultural prejudice, but through it all they have each other and the Saturday Evening Girls Club, a social pottery-making group. Their bond gives them the strength and courage to transform their lives.

Beth's father, Max, is at the end of his life, and his only request is that Beth go through an old box of memorabilia from when he served as a medic in World War II. Among the souvenirs is a photograph of Max with a woman, the German wife of a Nazi officer with whom Max risked everything. Meanwhile in a nearby private care home is a German woman with her own past to share. When she and Beth meet, Beth realizes that after all this time her father needs closure.