Following a tragic accident, two women--Tessa Russo, a renowned pediatric surgeon, and Valerie Anderson, an attorney and single mother--living in the same Boston suburb but with relatively little in common aside from a fierce love for their children converge in ways no one could have imagined.

Air Force wife Ellie Avery is so good at organizing she's turned pro. But when a fellow military wife turns up dead, Ellie tackles a different type of case--murder... Ellie Avery balances motherhood, marriage, and her own business--Everything in Its Place--with cheerful efficiency. A maestro of organization, she sees her life as an easy checklist that does not include the untimely death of Penny Follette. Unlike the police, Ellie isn't convinced...

Maddy is a devoted stay-at-home wife and mother, host of excellent parties, giver of thoughtful gifts, and bestower of a searingly perceptive piece of advice or two. She is the cornerstone of her family, a true matriarch...until she commits suicide, leaving her husband Brady and teenage daughter Eve heartbroken and reeling, wondering what happened. How could the exuberant, exacting woman they loved disappear so abruptly, seemingly without reason,...

De'Andrea Whitman, her husband Malik, and their five-year-old daughter, Nina, are new to the upper-crust white suburb of Rolling Hills, Virginia - a move motivated by circumstance rather than choice. De'Andrea is heartbroken to leave her comfortable life in the Black oasis of Atlanta, and between her mother-in-law's Alzheimer's diagnosis, her daughter starting kindergarten, and the overwhelming whiteness of Rolling Hills, she finds herself struggling...

Seven-year-old Billy Miller starts second grade with a bump on his head and a lot of worries, but by the end of the year he has developed good relationships with his teacher, his little sister, and his parents and learned many important lessons.