As she worries about her mother who is entering a rehab facility for alcoholism, eleven-year-old Veronica struggles with secrets, her favorite sport, softball, and what she really wants to do with her life.

In 1946, while her emotionally distant father is in occupied Japan, a twelve-year-old girl spends a year with her mother's relatives in a Tlingit Indian village in Alaska and begins to love and respect her heritage as she confronts the secret of her mother's disappearance.

Thirteen-year-old Cynnie has had to deal with her mother's alcoholism and stream of boyfriends all her life, but when her grandparents take custody of her brother, who has Down Syndrome, Cynnie becomes self-destructive and winds up in court-mandated Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

Georgia can almost feel her heart cracking a little more every day. With Daddy sinking deeper into alcoholism and Mama struggling to keep the family afloat, Georgia is sent to stay with her mysterious great aunt in her old country house. Soon, lonely Georgia meets Angela, a girl with secrets of her own, and they discover a magical lake. At first, the lake offers a thrilling escape, but as things grow worse at home, a troubled boy appears at the...

To avoid his alcoholic mother's problems, Nick, seventeen, stays with his aunt's family near the Oregon coast, where he works at his uncle's car wash and falls into a complicated relationship.

A family extending from Pakistan to California, deals with generations of young love, old regrets, and forgiveness.