44 Charles Street

Ellen Wharton has flown into New York from London, regardless of the weather and her husband's worry. The successful interior designer is intent on seeing her lively architect mother and has an important personal appointment to keep. But despite Ellen's urging, when the storm hits, seventy-four-year-old Grace Madison refuses to leave her Tribeca apartment in the midst of the evacuation zone, and they must eventually wade through chest-high water to the police boats outside.

At thirty-nine, Tallie Jones is a Hollywood legend. Her work as a film director is her passion and the center of her life; one after another, her award-winning productions achieve the rare combination of critical and commercial success. With no interest in the perks of her profession or the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles, Tallie maintains close and loving relationships with her college-age daughter and her aging father, and has a happy collaboration with Hunter Lloyd. her respected producing partner....

Sybil and Blake Gregory have established a predictable, well-ordered Manhattan life - she as a cutting-edge design authority and museum consultant, he in high tech investments - raising their teenagers, Andrew and Caroline, and six-year-old Charlie. But everything changes when Blake is offered a dream job he can't resist as CEO of a start-up in San Francisco. He accepts it without consulting his wife and buys a magnificent, irresistibly underpriced historic Pacific Heights mansion as their new home.

Ginny Carter was once a rising star in TV news, married to a top anchorman, with a three-year-old son and a full and happy life in Beverly Hills - until her whole world dissolved in a single instant on the freeway two days before Christmas. In the aftermath, she pieces her life back together and tries to find meaning in her existence as a human rights worker in the worst areas around the globe.

Four young women's lives intersect in the apartment they've shared in Hell's Kitchen: Claire, a shoe designer; Abby, an aspiring novelist; Morgan, a successful financial consultant; and Sasha, a resident in obstetrics. As different as they are from one another, the women had become a family by choice. But while their lives had proceeded smoothly in the years they'd lived together, new relationships, job opportunities, and surprising circumstances will test the strength of their bond in and outside the loft that had become their home.