In 1687 in Connecticut, Kit Tyler, feeling out of place in the Puritan household of her aunt, befriends Hannah Tupper, an old woman considered a witch by the community and suddenly finds herself standing trial for witchcraft.
In his senior year of high school, seventeen-year-old George begins to seriously question his parents' plans and assumptions about his future and decides to try to find his own way.
In early twentieth-century China, Ailin's liberal father allows her to avoid the tradition of foot-binding, but a broken engagement makes her family fear for her future. Ailin's intelligence and hard work--and a lot of luck--lead her to a new life in America.
When Davey Wexler's father is killed in a holdup in Atlantic City, her mother moves Davey and her brother to Los Alamos to get away from the memories--but Davey is a girl frozen in fear and anger, until she meets an older boy called Wolf who can read her tiger eyes.
As The Avenger searches for the teenage boys who trashed a house in his neighborhood, Buddy, one of the trashers, increases his drinking in order to cope with his parents' separation and his obsession with the daughter of the owner of the vandalized house.
After making contact with the spirit world during a near-death experience, Sarah moves to Houston with her parents and receives otherworldly messages about a murder committed in her house.