After the great destruction which obliterated the palace cultures of Minos, Ugarit, and many cities along the Mediterranean coast, the trade routes that connected the late Bronze age cities were disrupted. Part 3 continues the stories of the descendents of Thutmose, the founding Egyptian artist. Little Petros grows into a man who loves adventures and the life of traveling. He comes upon the nomadic Bedouin and their cherished war-mares and loses his heart to them. He cannot live with them for he owes duty to his kin. He and his brothers are sent to Egypt to purchase gems, gold and linen and discover if the old trade routes remain. They come upon an Arabian war-mare, and her companions; a girl disguised as a boy and a man who might be her father who are also on their way to Egypt. Nothing is as it appears, and surrounded by old animosities, old grudges, and old feuds, the three brothers barely escape Egypt with their lives. They are pursued to their new home by distant kin and old grudges. Petros grows into his manhood, discovers in himself the ability to innovate in an uncertain and changing world, forges new friendships and embarks on a tender love story.

32 Linden Avenue is perched high up on a hill overlooking a small town in western Pennsylvania and is the heart of this evocative journey through the author's fragmented memories of Appalachia. The murmuring of the women, the love and everyday lives of those living in the hard hill country and then the drenching of those memories in the deep hushed and hovering Protestant faith of that time and that place is woven into a spell drenched in the detailed memories of everyday life. A child, temporarily separated from her father and mother and brother by fate, found magic and succor, and most of all enduring love.

The young mother sees the same magic through older eyes and in the midst of the pain of her mothers final illness and bitter frustrated life is, as when a child, comforted by her family from the hill. Haunted throughout her life, the author sees all this from even older eyes and vows that her children, and now grandchildren, shall not be deprived of the chance to seize meaning and beauty and, thus, comfort from these remembrances.

In a University town during the present time, ladies have a book club where they are studying The Tale of Genji, the worlds first novel written by a lady from Heian Japan, with a graduate student. The ladies are going through tumultuous times that echo those of the book they are reading; a husband is dying, a marriage is falling apart, a decision about retirement has to be made. Old loves re-appear, the bereaved are able to love again, though not in the same old way, new men appear and court the ladies, loved ones sicken gradually. Houses that were used to bring up children are too large and too complicated for the lives they now lead. Their graduate student goes away for a quarter, perhaps into exile.

Will there be a happy ending for any of our ladies? Do our ladies believe in the concept of happy endings? Will they continue reading The Tale of Genji together?

We rejoin the characters from The Book Club Chronicles as they are struggling with their lives and their loves. They are still studying The Tale of Genji, with the same graduate student from that previous time. Bill plots to return Annie to his life because of his need for revenge or for a reconciliation? Annie resumes writing after the death of Hans, and discovers the problems of publishing. Claire flails around to find an outlet for her intellectual energies. Katherine is having fun with her various men, while still mourning the loss of her great love. Franny, who has turned sour and angry, has become an annoying mystery. What is a happy ending for these ladies, if there is such a thing as a happy ending? While struggling they meditate on the nature of men and women and of marriages as they continue reading the great masterpiece from 12th century Heian Japan. Written in Japanese by Murasaki Shikibu, a court lady, instead of the highly regarded Chinese that the men wrote in, it is described as the worlds first novel.

In the late Bronze age, Lukenow, a trader and seaman from Minos (Crete), and Sardow, the ceramicist of the clan of artists, traders and warriors, see each other at a young age and enter each others dreams. Sardow is burdened with the far-seeing eye that shows her of the coming destruction of the palace based cultures from Crete along the Levant coast to Egypt. She and Lukenow have a child but Sardow does not long survive. Her clan leaves Ugarit and moves to the east away from the coming destruction.

Lukenow returns to Minos along with his child and Serena, Sardow's sister. They found a colony in the west. Serena and Lukenow become aware that the colony is failing and that their family is in danger from those who are gaining in power. They leave to rejoin Serena's family.

The clan holds itself together by passing down stories and holding open meetings where all of the kin are consulted. They protect and cherish their artists from the outside world and have from the times of Thutmose, the artist founder from Egypt. As more artists are born and cherished, how will they survive the dangerous times in which they live?

In Amarna during the time of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaton, the master sculptor Thutmose meets a mysterious woman who is is the pharaoh's service. She has wandered since her people were killed, but is haunted by memories. Drawn together by his art, their love commences. The pharaoh sickens, there is danger from the political turmoil. With the death of the pharoah, Thutmose knows Amarna will be deserted and his art works destroyed.

Pregnant, she leaves Amarna and travels north along the Mediterranean. She is adopted by a clan that trades and makes jewelry. Her son, greatly talented, becomes a master jeweler. Her new family, though menaced by robbers and bandits along the trade route, flourishes. She yearns for Thutmose still, even as her son reaches manhood and establishes his own family. She ages, weakens, and still is waiting for Thutmose, her great love. This is a story of yearning, of the way love is passed through the generations. Will Thutmose ever leave Egypt to be with her?