On the hottest day in 1935, and on the brink of a world war, three children lose their innocence as the sweltering summer heat bears down and their lives are changed forever. Cecilia Tallis is of England's privileged class; Robbie Turner is the housekeeper's son. In their moment of intimate surrender, they are interrupted by Cecilia's hyper-imaginative and scheming 13-year-old sister, Briony. As chaos consumes the family, Briony commits a crime, the...

When Monroe Blackwell, who is spending the summer at her grandmother's Louisiana bed-and-breakfast, meets Nathan Everets, who has a court-appointed job there, they share, and begin to recover from, their respective feelings of loss and guilt.

The youngest of three siblings, fourteen-year-old Anke feels both relieved and neglected that her father abuses her brother and sister but ignores her, but when she catches him with one of her friends, she finally becomes angry enough to take action.

After he eats the sin of a royal, Taj, a talented aki, or sin-eater who consumes the guilt of others whose transgressions are exorcised from them by powerful but corrupt Mages, is drawn into a plot to destroy the city, and he must fight to save the princess he loves and his own life.