Laura Elizabeth Woollett Books in Order

After her father's death, seventeen-year-old Laurel becomes fixated on her married English teacher at a Catholic boarding school. Her grief and longing for devotion draw her into an exploitative relationship shaped by unequal power and Romantic literary fantasies.

Twelve stories imagine the inner lives of women connected to notorious historical men. Wives, mistresses, and lovers confront obsession and unequal power, revealing how devotion can become complicity and how desire can draw ordinary lives toward violence.

In 1968 California, disillusioned Evelyn Lynden seeks purpose beyond her marriage and finds it in Jim Jones's Peoples Temple. Growing involvement with its charismatic leader tests her loyalties as idealistic promises give way to increasingly dangerous control.

Judy Novak fears her troubled daughter has taken her own life on a Pacific island, then learns she was murdered. As investigators scrutinize Paulina’s drinking and relationships, Judy fights to reclaim her daughter’s humanity and uncover who killed her.

Luna reinvents herself as an exotic beauty and pursues international modeling, hoping to escape her isolated Australian hometown. As her career ages, intersecting lives expose the sacrifices, racial assumptions, and class divisions beneath women’s pursuit of beauty and social advancement.