"At the front of a middle school classroom in Oklahoma, a boy named Khosrou (whom everyone calls "Daniel") stands, trying to tell a story. His story. But no one believes a word he says. To them he is a dark-skinned, hairy-armed boy with a big butt whose lunch smells funny; who makes things up and talks about poop too much. But Khosrou's stories, stretching back years, and decades, and centuries, are beautiful, and terrifying, from the moment his family...

The love between two teenage brothers helps to alleviate the harshness of their usually parentless life as they struggle to grow up. "Usually easygoing and affable, fifteen-year-old Tex undergoes a startling personality change when his rodeo-riding father reveals the truth about Tex's birth, unwittingly pushing the boy to the point of murder."--

Chrystal's plans for the summer are upended when she joins her journalist father in Oklahoma to investigate a grisly attack, discovering that the only witness is a surprisingly good-looking farm boy named Logan. Something is in the woods. Something unexplainable. Something deadly. And Logan witnessed the attack. Hundreds of miles away, Chrystal's dad reads tabloid coverage of the grisly incident in Oklahoma, and he brings her along for the investigation....