Franny Callaghan feels invisible. With a missing mother only seen occasionally who speaks to the family through the closed door of her bedroom or the ensuite bathroom and a father and younger sister, who travel most of the time, home long enough to wash their underwear and re-pack before heading to the next competition so her sister can be an Olympic speed skater, Franny feels alone most of the time.

Franny’s brother died a few years before and is only seen in the photos on the wall. Her family hasn’t spoken of him since the day of his big funeral and all the news coverage of the tragic accident that killed eight members of the Ridgewood High School Orchestra and one of his teachers. And Franny Callaghan remains… just the awkward middle kid in a family that used to look like everyone else’s.

What if Franny just took off to go see her brother’s favorite band on the anniversary of his death? Maybe that would be the jolt her family so badly needed.

Thirteen-year-old Betony has always hated going to her cranky great-grandmother’s house. It’s old and stuffy and boring and the woodstove in the kitchen is always burning too hot. But her Gram doesn’t have any other family living close by on the Kingston Peninsula, so Betony ends up being dragged along all the time.

She’d rather be pretty much anywhere…until one day Betony sits on her Gram’s favourite chair. She is suddenly transported into the past, and is experiencing her Gram’s life as if it were in her own memory. At first Betony is excited and curious, and begins to develop a close relationship with Gram, even learning to cook and quilt. But after she has experienced a few more of her great-grandmother’s memories, she  realizes she is slowly uncovering a terrible, shameful family secret.