Eldest daughter in an unusual family, Evvie goes to spend the summer with a bedridden great-aunt, whose plutocratic and acerbic views affect her relationship with two boys she meets--one divinely handsome, the other possessing a dark mystery.
Sybil's sixteenth birthday brings the Sebastian family together again--a reunion that initiates a series of crises and confrontations between the four sisters and their parents that have far-reaching consequences.
To annoy her older sister Thea, satisfy her own ego, and raise much-needed funds for her sick younger sister, sixteen-year-old Claire, a past master at deceit and manipulation, uses a boy in love with Thea to delve into ugly secrets in the past.