Watergate is breaking news, but at the Prairie Bluff boarding house in Illinois, there are more immediate concerns, Emma Bovary has arrived unannounced & Anne-Marie & her daughter Penny have torn themselves away from the news to attend to their new guest. But if there's one rule at Prairie Bluff, it's never meddle in the lives of guests

Although a true lover of books, Anne-Marie Entwhistle prefers not to read to her spirited daughter, Penny, especially from the likes of Madame Bovary, Gone With the Wind, or The Scarlet Letter. These novels, devoted to the lives of the Heroines that make them so irresistible, have a way of hitting too close to home -- well, to the Homestead actually, where Anne-Marie runs the quaint family-owned bed and breakfast.

In this enchanting debut novel, Penny and her mother encounter great women from classic works of literature who make the Homestead their destination of...