Since the moment she came into the world, Ren "Jackal" Segura has been treated differently. As a hope, she is a symbol of the highest principles of human society and is guaranteed a position of influence in the global government once she comes of age. But two months before she is to assume the role she has been preparing for her entire life -- when she will leave her home to represent the massive corporate entity that houses, feeds, and employs her and everyone around her -- Jackal discovers that everything she believes, everything she is, is a lie.

Saddled with a crushing burden she dares not share with anyone -- not even Snow, her closest web mate, her dearest heart -- she must live as if nothing has changed. But on a recreational outing with the others in her web, she inadvertently finds herself at the center of a maelstrom of terror and catastrophe ... and in a single instant, Jackal Segura is a Hope no longer. In the collective eyes of the society that once revered her, she has become someone else: a pariah...and a murderer.

Now she must suffer a terrible punishment. Agreeing to participate in a "rehabilitation" experiment, she surrenders to a virtual solitude, imprisoned alone in a cold gray box in her mind, where months will seem like years and the demons of her psyche will be allowed free rein. But Jackal's history as a Hope has given her strengths and skills other prisoners lack -- powers she will need to endure the tormenting loneliness; to survive, branded and despised, back in a world she doesn'tknow; to uncover the truth about her cruel betrayal; and to rediscover her life, her love, and her soul -- in a strange place of shattered hopes and new beginnings, called Solitaire.