Bitter rivals fight for control of the Women's Institute in a rural English town as it struggles with the onset of World War II. Separated from husbands, fathers, sons and brothers for years at a time, some permanently, they find themselves under extraordinary pressures in a rapidly fragmenting world.

"Bob Lee Swagger is in love--with a woman who died 70 years ago. Ludmilla "Mili" Petrova was a great Russian sniper in World War II until she disappeared on a mission and was virtually erased from history. When Kathy Reilly of the Washington Post encounters a brief mention of Petrova in an old Russian propaganda magazine, she begins building a story around the legendary female sniper, who was once dubbed Die Weisse Hexe--The White Witch--and lauded...

"Their lives set on a nightmarish detour by civil war, the captive wives of a Liberian rebel officer form a hardscrabble sisterhood. With the arrival of a new girl who can read--and the return of an old one who can kill--their possibilities are quickly transformed. Drawing on reserves of wit and compassion, these defiant survivors ask: When the fog of battle lifts, could a different destiny emerge? Eclipsed offers a chilling, humanizing and surprisingly...

"In London, 1939, Ada Vaughan is a young woman with an unusual dressmaking skill, and dreams of a better life for herself. That life seems to arrive when Stanislaus, an Austrian aristocrat, sweeps Ada off her feet and brings her to Paris. When war breaks out, Stanislaus vanishes, and Ada is taken prisoner by the Germans, she must do everything she can to survive: by becoming dressmaker to the Nazi wives. Abandoned and alone as war rages, the choices...

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances "Frankie" McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the...

"In the second terrible winter of the siege of Leningrad, seven women snipers find themselves caught up in the struggle against the German invader. Their deadliest shot is Sara, whose inner demons may yet prove her undoing--but with the enemy to their front and the agents of the Soviet state lurking in the shadows, how long can any of the squad survive the terrifying maelstrom of war?"--Back cover.

"In London, 1939, Ada Vaughan is a young woman with an unusual dressmaking skill, and dreams of a better life for herself. That life seems to arrive when Stanislaus, an Austrian aristocrat, sweeps Ada off her feet and brings her to Paris. When war breaks out, Stanislaus vanishes, and Ada is taken prisoner by the Germans, she must do everything she can to survive: by becoming dressmaker to the Nazi wives. Abandoned and alone as war rages, the choices...