In 1861 seventeen-year-old Abbie Garrett, living on Staten Island with her Southern mother and Yankee father, finds herself drawn firmly into the growing conflict between the North and the South with the arrival of her cousin Lorena from Charleston and the return from Atlanta of the two McIntyre brothers, the elder of whom has always had a special place in Abbie's heart.

Vacationing in a small midwestern town, eighteen-year-old Christie is drawn into the conflict between the townspeople and Mexican American migrant workers employed by her father's company.