In the summer of 1972, on the night of their high school graduation, nine friends make a solemn vow to meet in twenty years' time. For Willa Scott, flanked by her best friend, Angel, and her boyfriend, Caleb, the future is a canvas to be painted in bold strokes and bright colors. But the ensuing decades bring change and separation. Willa becomes a biographer, and she drifts away from Caleb and Angel.

Almost twenty years later, Willa, now mother of a teenage girl herself and recently widowed, looks up during a book signing and sees Patrick Mulhaven, the bad boy of Beacon High. He reminds her of their long-ago vow and persuades her to help track down their old group. It isn't long before Willa discovers that Angel's trail after high school is ice cold. It's as if she dropped off the face of the earth. Convinced that something has happened to her friend, Willa begins a search that takes her back through the looking glass. What she