When Charlotte married older and wealthy widower Paul, it caused a ripple of gossip in their small lakeside town. They have a charmed life together, despite the cruel whispers about her trailer-park past and his first marriage. But everything starts to unravel when she discovers a young woman's body floating in the exact same spot where Paul's first wife tragically drowned.

When seventeen-year-old Isobel's mother marries a man she just met and they move to his gothic mansion on an island, strange occurrences cause Isobel to fear that she is losing her sanity as her artist father did.

When a boy interviews a custodian for his school newspaper, friendship ensues, and a family gains a father.

After her mother dies, Marianne becomes a daydreamer and begins to fall behind in her schoolwork.

When twelve-year-old Kammy has difficulty accepting her new family after her father's remarriage, a summer at Camp Arrowhead helps her to put her home life in perspective.

"Single mom Dori Robertson is suddenly under pressure to find a new father for her eleven-year-old son. And he's already chosen the guy--former pro-football player Gavin Parker. As it turns out, Gavin's daughter wants her dad to marry again, too. When the kids join forces, Gavin suggests he and Dori start dating, just to satisfy the kids. Dori figures it's safe enough...until he kisses her!"--p.[4] of cover.

"As Trent Zimmerman struggles to move past a traumatic event that took place several months earlier, he befriends class outcast Fallon Little, who helps him understand that he can move on"--

When his father forgets to come for him after his mother leaves on her wedding trip with her new husband, twelve-year-old Jerry runs away from both of them to his grandparents' house, only they don't live there any more.

Sixth-grader Annabelle spends autumn coping with competing groups of friends at school, her mother's pre-wedding stress, learning to get along with a cute stepbrother-to-be, and such momentous events as wearing her first bra and learning to shave her legs.