This is a novel about the lives of the members of the Temple family and their connections in Tidewater, Virginia, in the Reconstruction era. The widow Judith Temple and her sister in law Jacqueline live quietly on the Temple plantation, when the widower George Throckmorton returns to Tidewater. He had joined the Union Army in the war, and led with distinction. The lives of the girls are turned upside-down..

Some books have plots that drive relentlessly toward a conclusion. Others, like "This Is The End", just meander. It is the story of a Family halfheartedly searching for a missing relation who does not want to be found, while just off-stage, World War I is raging on the continent. It is a story about ordinary people trying to live ordinary lives in extraordinary times. The things they do are less important than the ways in which they do them: often comic, occasionally tragic, but always touching and true to life. It reminds us that Poetry and Romance can be found anywhere, hidden beneath the surface of the most commonplace things.

Why Marry? is a comedy, which "tells the truth about marriage". We find a family in the throes of proving the morality of marriage to a New Age Woman. Can the family defend marriage to this self-supporting girl? Will she be convinced that marriage is the ultimate sacredness of a relationship or will she hold to her perception that marriage is the basis of separating two lovers."Why Marry?" won the first Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

“Love!–A word by superstition thought a God; by use turned to an humour; by self-will made a flattering madness.” – Alexander and Campaspe. Lady Juliana, the indulged and coddled seventeen (”And a half, papa”) year old daughter of the Earl of Cortland, is betrothed by her father to a wealthy old Duke who can give her every luxury. She instead runs away and marries her very handsome but penniless lover. Very soon, they are forced to travel to Scotland to live with his quirky family in a rundown “castle” in the barren wilderness. Can this marriage survive?(Summary by P.Cunningham)

May Wedderburn is a quiet provincial girl, living in small and seemingly boring Skernford. Underneath the dull exterior, there is mystery, suspicion and fear in this little town, surrounding the austere local wealthy landowner who is very interested in marrying poor May. It looks as though she will have to marry him whether she likes it or not until an unsuspected alliance is formed between her and a respected old lady. They both escape to Germany where music and excitement await them.

Edward Povey had been a correspondence clerk for twenty-two years when he was summarily dismissed. So how did he find himself mixed up with an orphan girl, who was really a princess, as she sought to reclaim her throne from the man who had killed her parents? Well, however it had happened, it was romantic. And after two decades in the basement office of a shipping company, he was ready for a bit of romance. (Introduction by MaryAnn)