Rebecca Swain is a beautiful, intellectual young woman. Life is good to her. Her new boyfriend Matt's family is rich and socially prominent. The idea of a romantic weekend with him at his parents' palatial estate sounds inviting. The visit to paradise brings her face to face with Matt's family for the first time. His father, Jeremy, is dashingly handsome like his son. His mother Iris, on the other hand, looks at first glance to be a slightly unbalanced alcoholic. Rebecca instantly impresses Jeremy who is smitten with her charm and grace. As the weekend progresses, she finds herself seduced into a deadly love triangle. All is not as it seems between father, mother, and son. As Rebecca peels away the family's hidden realities, she finds herself embroiled in their secrets, and the unwilling victim of the family's most deranged member. She will need all her resources to uncover the ultimate horrible truth and stay alive.

Precocious teenager Juliet moves to New Zealand with her family and soon befriends the quiet, brooding Pauline through their shared love of fantasy and literature. This friendship gradually develops into an intense and obsessive bond.

After being brutally murdered, 14-year-old Susie Salmon watches from heaven over her grief-stricken family -- and her killer. As she observes their daily lives, she must balance her thirst for revenge with her desire for her family to heal.

In 1860s New Zealand, a young Irish woman desperately trying to find her son finds herself caught on both sides of the lines during the wars between Māori tribes and the British colonial army.