North Carolina deputy sheriff Miles Ryan, heartbroken over his wife's death in a hit-and-run accident two years earlier, considers love again when he meets his son's second-grade schoolteacher, Sarah--but he soon finds that his wife's death was anything but an accident and danger is not far away.

The author recalls her life growing up in a dysfunctional family with an alcoholic father and distant mother and describes how she and her siblings had to fend for themselves until they finally found the resources and will to leave home.

The family of Dirk Burnaby, a New York State lawyer representing victims of Love Canal, and his wife, Ariah, whose first husband widowed her on their wedding night by jumping into Niagara Falls, is pulled apart by Dirk's obsession with his case and Ariah's fear that her history will repeat itself.