Nellie, née Bouchard, is divorced by wealthy Jack Givens because after a miscarriage even in vitro fails to overcome her infertility. She finds herself destitute as her own account were plundered by someone who stole her maiden identity, Eleanor Kendall. Bank officer lover Dave helps her trace the impostor to Montréal and prevent if being spent on a Corsica home. She starts an affair with British doctor Christopher Dolan, who is in town for a conference, and bumps into Eleanor, a local French tutor and single mother. Instead of informing the police, she gets acquainted with and comes to like 'Eleanor'. Finally the truth catches up, but more complex and perilous then anyone anticipated.

A story very loosely based the 480 B.C. Battle of Thermopylae, where the King of Sparta led his army against the advancing Persians.

An emotionally scarred fifty-something female, a high-profile but haunted British novelist, and a heroic dissident-cum-Soviet psychiatric hospital veteran, all reunite decades after bonding and surviving together in a detention camp during World War II.

When George and her colleagues get a new boss whose focus is on moving souls quickly and enjoying life without consequences, the team begins to break the strict reaper rules. While her friends fall victim to their desires for money, success, and fame, George breaks another rule by revealing her true identity to her living family.