Tell Me Everything brings together characters from across Strout’s writing career. In rural Maine, Bob Burgess (from 2013’s The Burgess Boys) finds himself taking on the case of a reclusive man who is under suspicion of the murder of his mother; also living nearby is novelist Lucy Barton, living near the coast with her ex-husband William and now firm friends with Bob; and at Bob’s suggestion Lucy also begins to visit the now nonagenarian Olive Kitteridge in her nursing home, where the two share stories and ponder on life and love.

Instructions for a Heatwave is set during the UK’s record-breaking 1976 heatwave and drought. It focuses on an Irish family, led by Gretta and Robert Riordan, who moved to London and raised three children, who have all now left home.. Robert goes out one morning for a newspaper and mysteriously disappears, which is the impetus for a re-grouping of the remaining family members, all of whom are dealing with their own issues and harbouring secrets.