Novel Lisa Stern, an idealistic child of the sixties, feels ready to change the world. She navigates the tumult of her Boston college years and falls in love with a professor who dies in a car crash. In a state of intense grief, Lisa drives to Provincetown one night to wander their favorite beach. Seeing the anguish of the young woman, a sleepless Isabela, who owns the town bakery, thinks she may commit suicide. She invites Lisa to come home with her and with Isabela's help, Lisa begins to heal. Change is in the air- there is the possibility of an equal rights amendment; abortion is legalized, the blistering summer of riots and the death of Martin Luther King brings the lack of civil rights in clear view, and there is belief that mass protest over an unjust war could in fact stop it. The music was of hope and change, and just good old rock and roll. Lisa is determined to come to life again and be part of the world that excited her a few short years before. She goes home to Albany, back to her superstitious, hypercritical family, to open a woman's center. Tracts of homes and businesses were bulldozed to make way for a government center and Lisa wants to work with the displaced community. She asks Marika, a single, black mother she befriends in Boston-in need of a new beginning herself- to come with her. As she charts a new course for herself to get through her personal crisis, an unlikely group of women whose lives intersect hers, begin shaping new lives for themselves. This is a story about broken hearts and fragile dreams repaired through the indelible ties of friendship and family. It celebrates the buoyant spirit of sisterhood in overcoming life's challenges.