Love and hope skip a generation, falling prey to judgment, shame, and pride. But from the crucible of abuse, a new and very different generation is created, and its love is not bound by human limits. Abel, age 11, and his little sister Becky have never known childhood. Their upbringing on the front hollow in southeastern Kentucky is one of loveless religion and the rod that enforces it. Their first ray of childhood comes when they meet their neighbor from the upper hollow, Zoe, age 10?, 11?... she doesn't know. She has had no upbringing from her violently indifferent parents. In fact they have kept her a secret to keep social workers from snooping around their "operation." Zoe, Abel, and Becky for the first time experience friendship as they meet secretly in the forest behind their homes. Their first and only summer of childhood flares briefly and is soon quenched by tragedy, but out of tragedy comes the seed of change, a change that will painfully catapult them into adulthood, but not quite human adulthood; something... more. A coyote and her three pups have been freed from a lab and returned home, and they carry in their blood the unlikely key to freedom for Zoe and Abel, the child refugees from the horror of their homes. The rural town of Smytheville Kentucky presents an idyllic facade, but the sins of the parents hide beneath, and its unloved children will have to forge a new path. Jack, a trapper and ex-soldier knows such communities well. From Afghanistan to Bosnia in the depths of war, he has survived by guarding his heart from the suffering around him, but he is not prepared for the children of Smytheville. His heart has some catching up to do.