In Minnesota in 1911, Nilda Carlson is torn between society life in the city of Blackduck and spending time with her family back home on the farm. Her employer, Mrs. Schoenleber, gives her more and more responsibility and experience, including recommending new opportunities for her philanthropy. Still new to America herself, Nilda focuses on the area's immigrant community, but she'll have to fight to get her ideas accepted by the locals and donors...

In the mid 1930's two well-educated sisters from Shanghai go to Los Angeles to become brides of the "Gold Mountain men" when their family is on the verge of bankruptcy. When they get there they are detained, interrogated, and humiliated for months. When one of the sisters becomes pregnant they vow that no one will ever know.

"In rural Virginia, Young and Pak Yoo run an experimental medical treatment device known as the Miracle Submarine--a pressurized oxygen chamber that patients enter for therapeutic 'dives' with the hopes of curing issues like autism or infertility. But when the Miracle Submarine mysteriously explodes, killing two people, a dramatic murder trial upends the Yoos' small community. Who or what caused the explosion? Was it the mother of one of the patients,...

"On a hot day in 1737 in Rotterdam, Anna Konig reluctantly sets foot on a merchant ship that will carry her and her fellow Amish believers across the Atlantic to start a new life. As the only one in her community who can speak English, she feels compelled to go. But Anna is determined to complete this journey and return home. Ship's carpenter Bairn resents the somber people who fill the lower deck. Delays, storms, illness, and diminishing provisions...

"Ellis Island, 1902: Two women band together to hold America to its promise: Give me your tired, your poor...your huddled masses yearning to breathe free... A young Italian woman arrives on the shores of America, her sights set on a better life. That same day, a young American woman reports to her first day of work at the immigration center. But Ellis Island isn't a refuge for Francesca or Alma, not when ships depart every day with those who are refused...

1737. Anna and Bairn met during their crossing to start a new life in the raw Pennsylvania frontier. As Anna and her fellow church members seek out a new beginning, Bairn has yet to commit to the strict expectations of the Amish community. Will their shipboard romance survive unexpected turns-- and a newcomer to the church who is everything Bairn is not?

On a cold night in October 1937, searchlights cut through the darkness around Alcatraz. A prison guard's only daughter--one of the youngest civilians who lives on the island--has gone missing. Tending the warden's greenhouse, convicted bank robber Tommy Capello waits anxiously. Only he knows the truth about the little girl's whereabouts, and that both of their lives depend on the search's outcome. Almost two decades earlier and thousands of miles...

"A Place for Us unfolds the lives of an Indian-American Muslim family, gathered together in their Californian hometown to celebrate the eldest daughter, Hadia's, wedding--a match of love rather than tradition. It is here, on this momentous day, that Amar, the youngest of the siblings, reunites with his family for the first time in three years. Rafiq and Layla must now contend with the choices and betrayals that lead to their son's estrangement--the...

At the intersection of "Americanah" and "The Help" comes a riveting debut novel about two marriages--one immigrant and working class, the other from the top 1%--both chasing their version of the American Dream. In the fall of 2007, Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Their situation only improves when Jende's son Neni is hired as household help....

In the midst of World War I, Kurt Dorn cannot agree with his German-born father that America is making a mistake by siding with Great Britain. Meanwhile area farmers come into conflict with the IWW, which doesn't want the area's wheat to go to support the troops.