I'd wondered about my mother all my life -- what she looked like, how she smelled and sounded and acted. Lately this wondering had grown to encompass a curiosity about the kind of people she herself came from, because they were my family, too, after all, even though I knew nothing about them. I'd no idea whether they were loud or soft-spoken, funny or boring, preferred chocolate to vanilla, if they liked movies over books or the other way around....

Rosario Gomez, having given up gang life after his brother was killed, is working hard to be a good father and earn a promotion at his job when a friend from the barrio shows up and tempts him back into his old ways.

Kat is a tough, independent woman who makes her living as a professional poker player. She is single, childless, and happy about it. But when her best friend, Josie, commits suicide, Kat becomes the temporary guardian of Josie's ten-year-old son, David. As the days pass, Kat begins to realize that all the money and success in the world don't mean a thing unless you have someone to share it with.

Haley Bombauer, aka Flash Jackson, confronts the summer of her seventeenth year with glorious anticipation. She envisions herself roaming the hillsides and forests on her beloved horse, venturing farther and farther away from her sleepy hometown and her overprotective mother. But when Haley falls through the rotted roof of the barn, she is destined to spend the summer in a thigh-high cast, stuck at home with her mother, enduring visits from her...