"In 1966, Baltimore is a city of secrets that everyone seems to know--everyone, that is, except Madeline "Maddie" Schwartz. Last year, she was a happy, even pampered housewife. This year, she's bolted from her marriage of almost twenty years, determined to make good on her youthful ambitions to live a passionate, meaningful life. Maddie wants to matter, to leave her mark on a swiftly changing world. Drawing on her own secrets, she helps Baltimore...

Bored New Jersey housewife Roberta fills her days by reading the personals and following an ongoing romance between Jim and Susan, mysterious drifters who appear to lead the kind of free-spirited life she can only dream about. And dream she does, until the day she actually shows up at the couple's pre-arranged rendezvous in New York City. After a bump on the head, a bout of amnesia turns Roberta into Susan.

Once an aspiring writer, Olga traded literary ambition for marriage and motherhood; when Mario dumps her after 15 years, she is utterly unprepared. Though she tells herself that she is a competent woman, nothing like the poverella (poor abandoned wife) that mothers whispered about in her childhood, Olga falls completely apart. Routine chores overwhelm her; she neglects her appearance and forgets her manners; she throws herself at the older musician...

A bored Manhattan housewife becomes convinced her next-door neighbor has committed a murder.

Kate Klein. a mother of three and a New Yorker at heart, finds her new life in suburban Connecticut rather unpalatable. But when another local supermommy is murdered, Kate can't help investigating, despite being warned off by the police. Sleuthing only when her kids are at nursery school, Kate discovers the murdered woman led a life full of secrets.