San Francisco ghostwriter Ruth Young finally begins to understand her Alzheimer's-afflicted mother LuLing's preoccupation with ghosts and curses when she reads Luling's writings of her dark backwoods childhood in 1920s China--where LuLing's mute, disfigured nursemaid committed suicide, and a nearby cave held what may have been the bones of the lost ancient hominid Peking Man.

Life gets complicated once again for teenaged Alyssa when her mother returns home from an asylum and the mysterious Morpheus tempts Alyssa with another dangerous quest in the dark, challenging Wonderland.

Seventeen-year-old Ember Miller, living in a world in which the Bill of Rights has been revoked, is able to keep a low profile until her mother is arrested for noncompliance and she realizes the officer responsible is her first love, Chase Jennings.

Shelby Cooper, nearly eighteen, has been overprotected by her single mother all her life but after a car accident, Shelby's mother steals her away from the hospital, revealing that Shelby's father is not dead, but rather a violent man who promised to hunt them down.