Combine a klutz, a sex addict, and a book smart/street dumb medical student into one person, and who do you get? Emma Silberlight, valeditztorian Traveling to Brazil in the late nineties to conduct medical research, Emma is desperately trying to screw her head on straight, which won't be easy. Cursed with shaky hands and a maddening tendency toward self-destruction, Emma can't seem to control a scalpel, or anything else in her life. Back in high school, Emma got booted from home for committing the ultimate, unforgivable sin. Now she's struggling to escape the gold-plated handcuffs that bind her to Thomas, a man with a remarkable talent for lifting her body to heaven, while dragging her soul right down to hell. Following a whirlwind Brazilian adventure, Emma meets Aimee, a psychologically troubled nine-year-old New Yorker who unexpectedly holds the key to reinventing Emma's future.