Clymer Library Reader's Advisory

Popular high-school swimming star Chris Harte and talented artist Emily Gold bonded as infants; their parents have been next-door neighbors and were best friends for 18 years. When the two fall in love, everyone is ecstatic. Everyone, it turns out, except for Emily. Her emotional turmoil, compounded by pregnancy, which she keeps secret, leads to depression and a desire for suicide. She turns to Chris, and wants him to prove his love by pulling the trigger. The gun is fired in the first paragraph, and so the book opens with a jolt of adrenaline.

As the plot follows their pasts into the present, Chris is charged with the murder of Emily. A book that can be taken from today's headlines, the murder trial is sensationalized and causes the little town of Bainbridge, New Hampshire to become the center of the universe as tabloids and newspapers detail the murder trial.