Plot summary

Right up until his recent death in a single vehicle accident on her eighteenth birthday, India Stoker had always had a special relationship with her father, Richard Stoker. The two of them went hunting together, and he always hid one of her annual birthday presents - a pair of saddle shoes, which she always wears - sometimes where on their isolated Connecticut estate. India does not have that same type of relationship with her mother, Evie Stoker, that relationship which is more detached, outwardly in Evie's slightly unbalanced nature. India also is an outsider among her classmates as a lone wolf, she more attuned to her inner self in the acuity of all her senses. A surprise attendee at Richard's funeral is his younger brother, Charlie Stoker, who India did not even know existed, he apparently who has been traveling the world as long as India has been alive. Evie asks Charlie to stay indefinitely in his offer to help in the aftermath of Richard's death. India ends up having up and down feelings toward her uncle. Any suspicions she has about him are only strengthened by the disappearance of their long time housekeeper, Mrs. McGarrick, and the standoffish attitude of his Auntie Gin toward him in her short stay after the funeral. At the same time, India begins to feel more and more connected to him, that connection which Charlie himself not only also feels, but knows. What is happening to India in meeting Charlie may be begin to answered with another of the gifts she received for her eighteenth birthday, which sets in motion her path to true freedom.—Huggo