Samantha Baxter has a full, sane life-creative job, lovely family, and all the trappings of middle-age happiness. But when she gets a diagnosis that terrifies her, a lifetime of polite pleasing and putting others first ignites in her a surprising, pure rage. Maybe Sam will survive the surgery, and maybe not, but either way, she'll spend the next three weeks burning her life down: sleeping with a student her daughter's age, speaking every truth she's...

The lives of Davis Channing, a cancer-surviving recovering addict, and Cason Martin, a ballerina undergoing chemotherapy, intersect in a powerful way at a time when both are struggling to survive life-threatening diseases. Cason Martin is the youngest ballerina in the Atlanta Ballet Conservatory; her mother, the conservatory's artistic director, has made all the decisions for her. But Cason has been hiding an injury, and now she's undergoing chemotherapy....