Order. Purpose. Predictability. Dr. Renee Lawler organizes her life around those principles, and rarely does she stray from them. After all, they've brought her this far in life, where she enjoys her role as English department chair at a small but reputable New England university. Renee very much appreciates that her academic reputation instills sparks of fear in students' hearts. If there's room in her heart for anything more than literature and controlling those around her-Renee hasn't allowed herself the chance to discover that possibility. Her life is perfectly in order until one fall weekend, when her world collides with possibility and the past, setting off a tidal wave of changes she could have never predicted.