17-year-old Veronica "Ronnie" Miller is a troubled teenager who wants to live her own life and is trying her very best to ignore her divorced parents: Kim, her mother with whom she lives in New York, and Steve, her father who lives in his hometown of Wrightsville Beach, NC. Her mother decides that it would be in everyone's best interest if Ronnie and her 10-year-old brother, Jonah, spent the summer in Wrightsville Beach with Steve. Jonah is excited, while Ronnie can only wonder why her parents hate her so much as to send her there for the summer. Once they arrive, Kim leaves and Ronnie runs off to the carnival down at the beach, where she watches a volleyball game in the crowd. As she turns to leave, one of the players, the privileged Will Blakelee, knocks into her while trying to reach the ball, spilling her soda all through the front of her shirt. In search of a stand selling apparel, Ronnie bumps into Blaze, an estranged teen like herself. Blaze helps her find a T-shirt booth and they leave to watch a show by Marcus, Blaze's boyfriend, on the pier. The show includes "harmless" fireballs, and when it's over, the police run Marcus off. They go to sit under the pier, where Blaze heads off to get Marcus another beer. In Blaze's absence, Marcus attempts to hit on Ronnie, causing her to leave. Later, when Ronnie finds a nest of Loggerhead turtle eggs in danger of raccoons behind her house, she decides to camp out next to it to save it. She learns that Will volunteers at the aquarium, and after a few nights of talking with him on the beach, she realizes she has feelings for him. Ronnie then finds out that her dad has cancer. As his cancer progresses, she, Jonah, and Will finish piecing together a stained glass window while Ronnie also finishes her dad's song for him on the piano. Pastor Harris, Steve's friend, then installs the window in the new church. Kim arrives to say goodbye to Steve one last time and take Jonah home. Ronnie stays with Steve. Will had left in August to go to Vanderbilt; however, he shows up at the funeral once Steve has passed. He tells Ronnie that he is joining Columbia with her.

ISBN: 9780446570978