When 16-year-old Cindra Zoeller is sent to a reform camp in Montana after being involved in an armed robbery, she is thrust into a world of mountains, cowboys, prayers, miscreants and people from all walks of life like she’s never seen in suburban Massachusetts. At Camp Challenge, she becomes transfixed by Lucky, a camp employee of mysterious origin, and the chemistry between them is instant and profound. The pair escape together into the wilderness to create an idyllic life far from the reach of the law. But they can run from the outside world for only so long, and the consequences of their naïve fantasy of a future together --- and circumstances shaped by skin color --- will keep them apart for decades.

Danielle doesn’t really have a home. She’s squatting in a cabin deep in the woods, with no electricity or heat --- nothing but the nearby river to sustain her. She’ll need food, water and firewood --- and that’s just to get her through the storm. Eric gets her set up and departs with relief, but his car has been towed with his phone inside. There’s no choice but to return to the cabin. Danielle is terrified, then merely hostile. Who is this guy with this big idea that it’s she who needs rescuing?

At 17, David “Lizard” Hochmeyer is nearly seven feet tall, a star quarterback, and Princeton-bound. His future seems all but assured until his parents are mysteriously murdered, leaving Lizard and his older sister, Kate, adrift and alone. In a mansion across the pond from their Connecticut home lives the world’s greatest ballerina, Sylphide, and her rock star husband, whose own disasters intersect with Lizard’s --- and Kate’s --- in the most intimate and surprising ways.