Charlotte Anne Byers is one gloriously flawed human being --- a character in whom every reader will see herself reflected. The story of Charlotte's life --- from her stint in the youth chorus of her mother's opera company to her battles with addiction, doomed love, and the burdens of familial duty --- comes to us through Charlotte's most private thoughts, her most outrageous associations, her most wicked barbs, her most painful memories, her most honest revelations.

This is fiction so intimate, so immediate, so involving that reading it is like making a new friend.

While growing in confidence as a photographer, 18-year-old Jessie Ann Gaebele’s personal life is at a crossroads. Hoping she’s put an unfortunate romantic longing behind her as “water under the bridge,” she exiles herself to Milwaukee to operate photographic studios for those owners who have fallen ill with mercury poisoning. But even a job she loves can’t keep painful memories from seeping into her heart when the shadows of a forbidden love threaten to darken the portrait of her life.