Mehar, a young bride in rural 1929 Punjab, is trying to discover the identity of her new husband. Married to three brothers in a single ceremony, she and her now-sisters spend their days hard at work in the family's "china room," sequestered from contact with the men-except when their domineering mother-in-law, Mai, summons them to a darkened chamber at night. Curious and strong willed, Mehar tries to piece together what Mai doesn't want her to know....

Inheriting his slighted forefathers' bitter hatred for Queen Victoria, Nigel Whitaker has finally found a way to punish the Queen: kidnap her great-grandson David, "the apple of her eye," and whisk him off to America. But when fortune-seeking emigrants Jeremy and Cecelia Barlow, unable to have children of their own after a riding accident, become attached to the adorable child, his fate is even more uncertain. Meanwhile back in England, Queen Victoria's...