Kate Owens Has A Problem. Fifteen years old, she is sick and tired of playing second fiddle to her baseball-star younger brother. Kate loves her brother, but their mom's obsession with Kyle's success is turning Kate into a resentful and rebellious teenager. She jumps at the chance to escape to the uncomplicated tranquility of a summer at Shady Oaks, her grandparents' farm. But at Shady Oaks, Kate tumbles into a whole new set of complications. Kate's grandparents can't keep the farm going--it's up for sale--and her grandfather's ill health has transformed him into a shadow of the vital person he once was. Then the discovery of a mysterious letter written by her great-aunt seventy years earlier launches Kate on a troubling journey into her family's history. Kate struggles to unravel the clues to the past and to find some way of saving her grandparents' beloved farm. Although she's attracted to Ethan and Mark, the teenage farmhands, Kate isn't certain that she can trust them to help. She soon begins to feel overwhelmed by the tentacles of the past. In the gripping climax of the story, past and present briefly interwine and Kate learns to rely on her own strengths and instincts.