When Emily Parris exposes a secret society of teenage girls who have slipped out of the world of social media and into another world they've discovered in the woods at night. When she accuses the girls of committing sexually deviant activities, Emily sends the small American town into a atmosphere of hysteria and the national media spotlight. The mystery deepens when each of the accused girls upholds a vow of silence.

A regular guy struggles with a repressive home and professional life, as well as making amends for the trouble his free-spirited brother and sister cause about town.

Private detective John Rosow is hired to tail a man on a train from Chicago to Los Angeles. Rosow gradually uncovers the man's identity as a missing person; one of the thousands presumed dead after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Persuaded by a large reward, Rosow is charged with bringing the missing person back to his wife in New York City.

An Internet-addicted prep-school student captures on video camera the drug overdose of two girls.

In Manhattan, Genevieve Gernier owns a flower shop and has a personal dating rule: a limit of five dates with a man to avoid a relationship. When Greg Gatlin buys a restaurant nearby her shop, they decide to date. However, after five dates, Genevieve is not happy with her rule and does not know how to meet Greg again.

How do children respond to tragedy? On an icy road near Chicago, Marianne dies in a crash, leaving Joe and their daughters, Kelly, about 16, and Mary, about 9. That summer, a friend from Joe's graduate student days, 20 years before, arranges a teaching job for him in Genoa. When they arrive in June, Joe starts teaching and the girls have the summer before school starts: Kelly quickly falls in with youths her age; their club and beach life leads to sexual awakening. Mary, burdened by guilt for her mother's death, is solitary. The girls take piano lessons, Mary draws, and she also sees and talks to her mother. Joe asks them, "Are you okay?", but is that enough?