A contemporary Black woman living in 1970s Los Angeles is repeatedly pulled back in time to a Maryland plantation in the early 19th century, where she encounters ancestors and must navigate slavery's social and moral realities to survive and return to her own time.

Set in an imagined Antebellum United States, the novel follows Cora, an enslaved woman who flees a Georgia plantation via an Underground Railroad visualized as an actual subterranean railway.

Set in early sixteenth-century England, the novel follows the rise of a skilled lawyer and fixer inside the royal court, concentrating on his practical work, alliances, and the political currents that elevate him.

Set in 1920s Harlem, the novel follows two childhood friends whose reunion stirs fascination, rivalry, and moral danger when one woman passes as white. The central pressure comes from competing desires for safety, social standing, and intimacy within racially fraught social circles.

Set in late-colonial Nigeria, the novel follows Okonkwo, a powerful member of an Igbo clan, as local customs and personal codes confront outside forces and new beliefs.

A retelling of the Trojan War era centered on the relationship between a famed Greek warrior and the person who witnesses and loves him. The account compresses mythic events into a personal, emotionally charged narrative that follows their bond through training, war, and the pressures of fame and fate.

Set in Nazi-era Germany, the novel follows a young girl who acquires books and navigates life in an adoptive household while war encroaches on daily routines. The narration comes from Death, offering an outside, occasionally amused perspective on civilians, loss, and the act of reading.

Set against the realities of a mid-20th-century reform school in the American South, the novel follows young boys who confront daily physical and moral violence inside a state institution.