Alice Osbourne, the stolid daughter of the late vicar, is reeling from the news that Richard Fairfax broke their engagement to marry Evangeline Fontaine, an American girl from the Deep South. Evangeline's arrival causes a stir in the village but not the chaos that would ensue if they knew her motives for being there. Scrappy Elsie Pigeon is among the poor of London who see the evacuations as a chance to escape a life of destitution. Another new arrival...

Reeling from a broken engagement, adopted nineteen-year-old Menina Walker flees to Spain to bury her misery by writing her overdue college thesis ? and soon finds herself on an unexpected journey into the past. The subject of her study is Tristan Mendoza, an obscure sixteenth-century artist whose signature includes a tiny swallow ? the same swallow depicted on a medal that is Menina's only link to her birth family. Hoping her research will reveal...