Eugenia Ledoux, the nine-year-old protagonist of Dey's debut novel, fancies herself a tightrope walker, which turns out to be the least interesting thing about her. Eugenia also has synesthesia, a condition that jumbles her senses, causing her to experience light as sound, taste as touch, and so on. Eugenia wakes up one morning to find her father gone and her heartbroken self left behind with her mother, Mink, and her sister, the gorgeous but tragic Immaculata.
When Mink vanishes, too, Eugenia and Immaculata literally double in age overnight.
