The spellbinding story of two women named Esther who discover the power of the past over the present  Esther the Black is eighteen years old and ready to leave the Compound, the collection of cottages on the North Shore of Long Island where she has lived all her life. But as July turns to August and her family braces for the height of Drowning Season, she realizes that she may not be able to escape her family's legacy. Her father will find a way...

Already teased by her classmates because she is different, Molly is embarassed when her mother tries to help her out by creating a doll for the school Thanksgiving project who looks like her mother did when she arrived in the United States seeking religious freedom.

A motherless young girl becomes a great ballerina and a favorite of the Russian imperial family but when the revolution shatters the country, her life is changed forever.

During a scarlet fever epidemic one winter in Michigan, a Jewish family helps make Christmas special for their sick neighbors by making their own Hanukkah miracle. Based on a memory from the author's childhood.

Molly, who recently emigrated with her family from Russia to New Jersey, learns about birthday parties and who her real friends are.

In the small town of Rusty Nail, Minnesota, in the early 1950s, musically talented ten-year-old Franny wants to take advanced piano lessons from newcomer Olga Malenkov, a famous Russian musician suspected of being a communist spy by gossipy members of the community.

When Andrei Kaplan's older brother, Dima, insists that Andrei return to Moscow to care for their ailing grandmother, Andrei must take stock of his life in New York. His girlfriend has stopped returning his text messages. His dissertation adviser is dubious about his job prospects. It's the summer of 2008, and his bank account is running dangerously low. Perhaps a few months in Moscow are just what he needs. A wise, sensitive novel about Russia, exile,...