"After picking up a book from the library, Yvette--who has given up on love--gains the ability to see how other people's romantic relationships will end"--

"In 1838, a group of America's most prominent Catholic priests sold 272 enslaved people to save their mission, the fledgling Georgetown University. Journalist, author, and professor Rachel L. Swarns has broken new ground with her prodigious research into a history that the Catholic Church has edited out of its own narrative. Beginning in the present, when two descendants of a family enslaved by the church reconnect, Swarns follows their ancestors...

As they look forward to the New York City Marathon in which their friend Mr. B. will run, the Vanderbeeker children learn that one of their good friends is homeless.

"The story of the mother of Emmett Till, and how she channeled grief over her son's death into a call to action for the civil rights movement"--Provided by publisher.