Karen Clarke is a good girl. But when she meets Biba, an acting student, and her brother Rex and moves in with them tragedy ensues. The shocking ending will take your breath away.

Wendy White is a pretty waitress disappears from her upstate New York hometown. Stacy Flynn is a reporter from the big city looking for that next hot story. And Alice Piper is a genius 15 year old girl with parents who are eccentric hippies looking to get back to the land. Hoffman brings these three story lines together very skillfully.

Looking at Molly Allgood in 1950s London you would never imagine that this drunken old hag was once the toast of the Theater World and the muse to J.M. Synge a playwright. This is based on a true story and O’Connor’s writing is, as always amazing

Dick Slepy has moved his wife and 4 daughters to West Africa when he volunteers for a stint as a medical missionary. This was a grave miscalculation on Dick’s part. Dick winds up dead and the story of how he ended up that way is told in the alternating voices of his family and community. I loved this one. Imagine if Barbara Kingsolver and Jodi Piccoult had a literary love child. This is how it reads.

Young Jewish Man goes to Paris from his home in Hungary to study Architecture in the 1930s. Young Man meets Older Jewish Woman who is Hungarian. Young Man and Older Woman fall in love. Uh-oh! Here come the Nazis! Young Man and Older Woman return to Hungary. Uh-oh! Here come the Nazis and the Russians! War ends. Young Man and Older Woman live. I have just told you in 64 words the story that took this author over 600 pages. The writing was florid and overblown, with a cast of characters that was ridiculous in number and actually included a herd of life saving goats. I loathed it.