Paige has only a few memories of her mother, who abandoned her at five. She dreams of art school, marries a doctor-- and becomes a mother herself. But her mother's absence has made her doubt both her ability to give, and her own self-worth.

She may not be as brainy as her famous Manhattan plastic-surgeon husband, Jonah, nor as proper as his snooty rich parents. And she may be clueless about mothering, thanks to her wildly deficient Brooklynite parents (picture schlumpy), but nonetheless Susie loves her triplets, three rambunctious four-year-old boys. She also takes unabashed pleasure in her happy marriage, her floral design company, her humongous Long Island home, and her designer wardrobe....

Charles Bovary, an unremarkable man who becomes a country doctor in the north of France. During one of his rounds he falls under the spell of Emma Rouault, the beautiful daughter of one of his patients. When Bovary's wife unexpectedly passes away, he marries Emma, whose expectation of life becomes increasingly unfulfilled. After the birth of her child, she spins into a series of uncontrollable urges and bad choices that leads to her tragic downfall....

As a woman on death row resolves to disclose what led to her conviction, her estranged daughter, living far away under a different name, discovers new evidence and is forced to confront traumatic events in order to learn the truth.