Leslie McGuire

Twelve-year-old Harper has been dancing practically since she could walk. She loves her dance studio and team and just won her first ever top junior solo in a regional competition. But right before the school year starts, Harper's parents drop a bombshell - the family has to relocate from their cozy town in Connecticut to sunny Florida for their jobs. That means good-bye to her friends, dance team, trips to see shows in NYC. When she arrives at her new dance school and new team, it feels like everyone has better feet, quicker turns, and faster taps than Harper.

As the United States begins gearing up for war in the Middle East, 20-year-old Tassie Keltjin, the Midwestern daughter of a gentleman hill farmer - his "Keltjin potatoes" are justifiably famous - has come to a university town as a college student, her brain on fire with Chaucer, Sylvia Plath, Simone de Beauvoir. Between semesters, she takes a job as a part-time nanny. The family she works for seems both mysterious and glamorous to her, and although Tassie had once found children boring, she comes to care for, and to protect, their newly adopted little girl as her own.