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Nellie, whose black skin and blonde hair have always made her feel like an outsider, feels more out of place than when she was younger. Her parents are working on a divorce. She's stuck in a car on a road trip with her dark-skinned dad and her white, sassy cousin Jess. Things couldn't be worse--then the Volvo catches fire. As Nellie struggles to come to terms with her parents' separation, she is finally able to define herself in her own terms, finding both friendship and love in places least expected.

At 17, Fay Jones leaves her family's squalid home with $3 in her bra and ragged sneakers on her feet. As she heads for Biloxi,people befriend her, but her impact on their lives is seductive and unpredictable. Beautiful and naive, Fay becomes the catalyst in a chain reaction of desire and violence.

October Brown, an African-American teacher at a private school in Kansas, becomes pregnant by the father of a student and returns home to Ohio, where she and her sister were raised by their aunts after their father killed their mother 20 years before. Confused and unhappy, October gives the baby to her sister and goes back to teaching. Then she regrets her decision.

Ally, Bree, and Jack meet at the one place the Great Eclipse can be seen in totality, each carrying the burden of different personal problems, which become dim when compared to the task they embark upon and the friendship they find.

When teenagers in a California coastal community challenge each other to "jump the Nail"--leap from dangerous cliffs into the ocean--group pressure and manipulative relationships quickly drive the game out of control.

Austin tells the uplifting story of 20-year-old Violet Hayes and her search for her elusive mother and for true love. In her quest, Violet learns much about love, faith, and life as she marches for women's rights, feeds slum dwellers, hobknobs with the highfalutin, and ponders marriage proposals.