When a nine-year-old girl arrives at the doorstep of Mrs. Margaret Quinn, a widow who has previously lost her daughter, the two enter into an agreement to pass the young orphan off as a newly discovered granddaughter, Norah Quinn, who gradually displays strange magical qualities.
Young widow Eliza, left alone to run Wyatt Orchards and raise three children, does not know how she is going to manage, when a stranger, Gabe, appears at her doorstep and turns out to be the answer to her prayers.
Iris Chisholm arrives in the Scottish Highland community of Green Cairns hoping to recover from the shock of her husband's death and the news he has left her penniless, and soon finds herself distracted by the students at her small school and the two men vying for her attention.
Rowtina Washington, devastated after her husband dies, comes back to her in spirit, and leaves her again, finds new possibilities for life when she joins a women's group called the Leave Him and Live Sisterhood.
Civil War widow Cynthia May wins a job as a human computer at Washington's Naval Observatory where she becomes involved with handsome antic astronomer Hugh Allison, a man who is pursuing his ambition to project an image through time and space.
Lyddie, the wife of successful whaler Edward Berry, finds her life turned upside down after her husband is lost at sea, forcing her to rebuild her identity and adapt to life as a widow, while struggling to keep her property out of the hands of her closest male relative.
