After joining a convent eight years earlier, Caro’s older sister Hannah has renounced her vows and returned home. To sixteen-year-old Caro, Hannah feels like a stranger, and she resents her sister’s intrusion into her comfortable life as an only child. Caro lies to her friends and new boyfriend to cover up Hannah’s return, rather than have to explain her presence. It’s not easy to have Hannah around. She’s withdrawn and clearly depressed—in fact, she’s severely anorexic, and her parents struggle with how to help their adult daughter. Caro finds support in the unlikely friendship of a priest who isn’t put off by her anti-religious opinions and who shares her love of science. A tragic accident during Hannah’s childhood, which her parents have been tiptoeing around for years and which still haunts Hannah, slowly comes to light. Caro, at first relentlessly rude to her sister, gradually develops empathy for Hannah’s physical and emotional state, and pushes her parents to face the reality of their daughter’s condition. Just the right amount of humor brightens this story of sisters reunited and a realistic family struggling to find the right path through a difficult time. (Age 14 and older)

A riveting depiction of sisterhood, as one sibling's return home unleashes lies, a secret long buried, and emotional upheaval.
Caro Mitchell considers herself an only child--and she likes it that way. After all, her much older sister, Hannah, left home eight years ago, and Caro barely remembers her. So when Caro's parents drop the bombshell news that Hannah is returning to live with them, Caro feels as if an interloper is crashing her family. To her, Hannah's a total stranger, someone who haunts their home with her meek and withdrawn presence, and who refuses to talk about her life and why she went away. Caro can't understand why her parents cut Hannah so much slack, and why they're not pushing for answers.
Unable to understand Hannah, Caro resorts to telling lies about her mysterious reappearance. But when those lies alienate her new boyfriend, friends, and put her on the outs with her parents, Caro seeks solace from an unexpected source. And as she unearths a clue from Hannah's past--one that could save Hannah from the dark secret that possesses her--Caro begins to see her sister in a whole new light.
"Jarzab packs a lot into this story, questions of faith and forgiveness, science and religion, mental illness, guilt and possible redemption, as well as simple high school drama. But at its heart, this is a story about sisters."--Booklist, starred
"A layered meditation on family and belief that will ring true for faith-questing teens."--Kirkus Reviews