When her life of privilege is upended by a terrorist attack that ends her parents' lives, a college senior struggles to rebuild on her own terms, learning uplifting and heartbreaking life lessons throughout a series of relationships and opportunities.

"The sun beamed down on Melissa Henderson's shining dark hair, pinned up on her head in a loose knot, as sweat ran down her face, and the muscles in her long, lithe arms were taut with effort as she worked. She was lost in concentration, sanding a door of the house in the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts that had been her salvation. She had bought it four years before. It had been weather-beaten, shabby and in serious need of repair when she found...