Description: Fifteen-year-old Tessa Ramsey has always yearned for a sturdy, wise, and loving father -- someone like Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird. Throughout Tessa's childhood her father's demanding work as a surgeon kept him at a physical and emotional distance, and then he volunteered to serve as a doctor in Vietnam. When Tessa learns he is coming home from the war, she convinces herself that things will be different between them. And they are different -- now he smokes, suffers from terrible nightmares, and seems more distant than ever. Unable to face going back to his job at the hospital, he decides to move to Savannah, Georgia, where a new, less demanding job awaits. But on the way there he has a breakdown and Tessa convinces him to stop off at his sister's house in Taloosa. They end up staying for the summer, and Tessa makes new friends, including an eighteen-year-old boy named Caleb -- the most beautiful person she has ever seen. As Tessa becomes more enamored of Caleb, she leaves her father behind, just as her father is beginning to recover and reach out. It takes a chilling, eye-opening confrontation with Caleb to bring Tessa and her father together.

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