Secrets are deadly. They lie in wait within two families whose lives will be forever changed when they are revealed. Set in the mountains of Tennessee, this is the haunting tale of Lunda Rose Halverston, a young woman driven by incessant yearning for something unnamed. She struggles to understand the secrets of her brilliant, violent father; her evasive mother; her protective Cherokee grandmother, and two extended clans of mysterious, gun-packing relatives. The things she fears most become the catalysts that carve her like whittled cane and catapult her to the outside world, to adulthood, to reality, and to herself. This is an unforgettable story of transcendent longing, of the indestructible power of the human spirit, of family, of possibility, of forgiveness, and of embarking on a long search for something unknown. It is a story of the dualities found in all of us: love and anger, longing and despair, belonging and isolation. It is a tale of love, mystery, and finding the light when only darkness seems to prevail.