Ever since her father's death Aristotle "Aris" Thibodeau's been stuck in the small town of Kanuga, Georgia, where she has to manage her mother Diane's floundering love life and dubious commitment to her job as an English professor. Not to mention co-parenting a little brother who hogs all the therapy money. Following the advice laid out in Write a Novel in Thirty Days! she sets out to pen a bestseller using her charmingly dysfunctional family as material. But when a random accident uncovers a dark part of Thibodeau family history, Aris is forced to confront the fact that sometimes in life-- as in great literature-- things might not work out exactly as planned.