Sarah Norton's precious Nanny, and surrogate mother for most of her life, is dead. Now, at 15, Sarah must start again, leaving her school and best friends behind to move to the City to live with her father, and worse, his live-in girlfriend, Elaine. There she faces a lonely existence, and when the City school proves substandard, Sarah's father leaves it to Sarah to find a suitable alternative. But recognizing his fatherly failures and Sarah's increasing angst, he offers her a last-ditch opportunity to search for some happiness. Visits with distant family and friends in search of a real "home," not only test Sarah's maturity, but also lead Sarah to a house where a life-long loving facade evaporates, revealing in its wake evidence of bogus familial love. At first devastating, this revelation awakens in Sarah a desire to learn more about who she really is, and ultimately brings Sarah to a crossroad where she must determine how to break the family silence about her mother's horrific death, and find out why she, Sarah Norton, is also known as Denise Emily Peterson. Family love, the value of close friends, the sadness of failures, and experiencing tender young love are all part of Sarah Norton's difficult journey.