"A year ago, the badly beaten body of Jade Engler's younger brother Benjamin was found at the edge of their Paradise, Nebraska, farm. The unsolved murder and lingering pain tore at the already troubled home: the farm failed; her mother ran off without a word; and Jade's father, despondent, has taken up with a sugary-sweet younger woman.".

"Meanwhile, Jade decided that by seducing any boy she thought might be responsible for her brother's death and rejecting him afterward she might rid herself of her guilt. Only recently has she begun to settle down - and now she's discovered she's pregnant. Jade is paralyzed by indecision yet terrified of staying in Paradise. And so she decides to escape.".

"From the first leg of her journey, where she works as an au pair for a rich Connecticut family, to San Francisco on a train trip back west that she romantically hopes will inspire her in the same way it inspired her great-great-grandmother over a hundred years ago, Jade looks for answers. What she learns has more to do with the accidents that happen along the way. As her mother might have told her: "How could one slip of a letter from Jane to Jade be so prophetic?""--BOOK JACKET.