Since her mother was institutionalized, sixteen-year-old Celeste has been in and out of orphanages. Celeste is overjoyed when Wade and Ami Emerson adopt her. But when she discovers Ami's real reason for adopting her - a reason that involves a sexual tryst with Ami's father-in-law - Celeste is terrified.

"In her fine new Virginia school, Dawn Longchamp feels happy and safe. But nothing is what it seems... Now Dawn and her older brother Jimmy have a chance for a decent, respectable life, and Dawn’s secret, precious hope to study singing can come true. Philip Cutler, the handsomest boy in school, sets Dawn’s heart on fire. She is deeply devoted to her brooding brother; but with Philip, she imagines a lovely dream of romance... Then Dawn’s mother...

Seventeen year old Kristin Masterwood is thrilled when her father's construction company is hired to inspect the Foxworth property for a prospective buyer. The once grand Southern mansion still sparks legends and half truths about the four innocent Dollanganger children, even all these decades later. Foxworth holds a special fascination for Kristin, who was too young when her mother died to learn much about her distant blood tie to the notorious family....

An unhappy and overweight adolescent, April Taylor struggles to cope with the desertion and death of her father, the suicide of her mother, her new life with her lesbian sister, and her doubts about her own sexual orientation.

When her parents are killed in a truck accident outside their poor Mexican village, Delia Yeberra is sent to live with her wealthy aunt in Palm Springs, California, but she soon discovers the dark underside of her glamorous new life as she become caught in a bitter battle whose resentment may be linked to a sinister secret, in the first volume in a trilogy.