Ellen Hagan

In the summer before seventh grade in small-town Kentucky, Beatrice Miller, raised by her mother and her unconventional grandmother Mamaw, is caught between childhood and adolescence. She wrestles with changing friendships, body worries and shame about being seen as a 'hillbilly.'

When her wealthy father is arrested for fraud, Chloe Brooks and her mother move into an apartment complex on the other side of Lexington, Kentucky, where new friends, and Clint, help her figure out who she is.

On Long Beach Island, seventeen-year-old lifeguard Eliza, still haunted by the hurricane that nearly destroyed her family five years ago, fights to protect the local marshland and falls for Milo, a wealthy New York summer visitor she teaches to surf.