Win Spangler and Helena Glass met on the dunes at a beach resort in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1919. Helena, a skilled shooter and former beauty queen, was born and raised on a moss-draped former rice plantation. Win is a medical school dropout with a sizeable inheritance, eager to make his mark on southern culture. When Helena seduces Win, their lives become inextricably bound. Their daughter Sally Anne is born at Glass Manor and her father nicknames her Skip, because he hopes any misfortune will pass her by. But her mother is unstable and her father is unsatisfied, and Skip grows up lonely and isolated. When Skip is thirteen years old her father invites a disquieting doctor to set up a private laboratory on the property, and his pioneering surgical experiments lead to disastrous consequences, forcing Skip to question everything she knows about family, love, and legacy.
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