Despite her friend's warning, Rachel is excited to attend Brendan Fear's birthday party at his family's estate on mysterious Fear Island, but soon someone introduces a game of murder and all of the guests are in danger.

Tress Montor's parents disappeared seven years ago while driving her best friend home. The entire town shuns her now that she lives with her drunken, one-eyed grandfather at what locals refer to as the 'White Trash Zoo,' a wild animal attraction featuring a zebra, a chimpanzee, and a panther, among other things. Felicity Turnado has worked hard to make everyone forget that she was with the Montors the night they disappeared. She buried what she knows...

During the days before her sixteenth birthday, Mia records in her diary her fear that her grandmother and friends may be planning to throw an extravagant Sweet Sixteen party.

The daughters of a North Carolina senator, Isabelle and Mirabelle, who are still reeling from the knowledge that they are not cousins, but actually sisters, barely have time to process the news with cotillion season right around the corner.