"Little River, New York, 1994: April Sawicki is living in a motorless motorhome that her father won in a poker game. Failing out of school, picking up shifts at Margo's diner, she's left fending for herself in a town where she's never quite felt at home. When she "borrows" her neighbor's car to perform at an open mic night, she realizes her life could be much bigger than where she came from. After a fight with her dad, April packs her stuff and leaves...

When young Reagan rides into Harmony, Texas, in the back of a pickup truck, she's in search of that elusive quality called "home," and prepared with enough background on the small town's inhabitants and history to pass as one of the founding family's descendants. Grateful for irascible old Jeremiah Truman's unquestioning acceptance, she settles quickly into the rhythm of school and chores, but remains standoffish even when junior rodeo champion Noah...

An old man reminisces about his first love, a young runaway who taught him more about life than anyone had before or since.

In the final story of The Inn at Shining Waters, Anna Larson's granddaughter Sarah is beginning to find her independence. But her relationship with her parents suffers as a result and she travels away from all that is familiar. While the solace of the river calls Sarah back, surprises await upon her return. Three generations of family heartbreak and disappointments converge at Shining Waters as Sarah finds God right in the center of it all.

1974: Fifteen-year-old Loretta slips out of her bedroom window to meet her "Gentile" boyfriend. This time, however, her strict Mormon parents catch her returning at dawn and quickly arrange for her to marry the upstanding Dean Harder, a devout yet materialistic fundamentalist who already has a wife and a brood of kids, some not much younger than Loretta herself. Trapped in her role as a "sister wife," Loretta dreams of another, better future, of a...

Opening her own bakery between a tavern, owned by sexy, grumpy Bodie Campbell, and a bookstore, run by her new BFF, Harper Shaw, feeling a peace she's never experienced since forever, takes Ivy, a teenage runaway, under her wing, which changes her whole world. "When Harper Shaw's life falls apart, she knows it's time for a change. She removes everything that doesn't spark joy--from her soul-sucking job to eating kale to making lists--and sets off...

"For decades, people have been warned about the Cold Creek Highway. Hitchhikers have vanished along it over the years, and women have been known to have their cars break down... and never be seen again. When Hailey McBride decides to run away from an unbearable living situation, she thinks that her outdoor skills will help her disappear into the Cold Creek wilderness, and she counts on people thinking that she was the victim of the killer. One year...

Driven from their impoverished Irish village, fifteen-year-old Maura and her younger brother meet their landlord's runaway son in Liverpool while all three wait for a ship to America.

It was 1970 when thirteen-year-old runaway Kit Walker was abducted by Manny Romero, a smooth-talking, low-level criminal, who first coddled her and then groomed her into his partner-in-crime. Before long, Kit and Manny were infamous for their string of gas station robberies throughout Texas, making a name for themselves as the Texaco Twosome. Fourteen years later, Kit has scraped together a life for herself and her daughter amongst the pecan trees...

"When three siblings run away to hide in the mountains, they have to face search parties, hunger, injury -- and the danger of their team unravelling. First a Canadian Rockies avalanche kills their parents. Then Children's Services threatens to separate them. That's when the three Gunnarsson kids, Jon, Korka, and Aron, decide to run away into the mountains and fend for themselves until Jon turns eighteen and becomes their legal guardian. But can they...