After a family tragedy orphans her, Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I., moves into her grandmother's mostly black community in the 1980s, where she must swallow her grief and confront her identity as a biracial woman.

Stanley's last shift at his fast food job takes an unexpected turn when he befriends a young African-American employee.

Now 94 and living a quiet life, Cecily Larson, when her family surprises her with an at-home DNA test, finds the unexpected results not only bringing to light the tragic love story she's kept hidden for decades but also calls into question everything about the family she's raised and claimed as her own.

Relates the author's difficult adjustment to life in the United States after leaving Cold War-era Russia, the birth of her daughter and arrival of her Soviet mother, and how three generations of women with different cultural values found balance and understanding together.

Based on a true story, describes how a lonely, 1980s teenager befriends an elderly neighbor and uncovers her past as a librarian at the American Library in Paris who joined the Resistance when the Nazis arrived.