"You have to beat the words, Marta, beat the stuttering. Learn to speak, to let your voice be heard." After her father's death, all Marta wants to do is hide. Hide from her stuttering. Hide from the world outside her home. Hide from her family who so often reminds her of him. But even Marta realizes she cannot hide forever, and staying hidden gets even harder when her mother decides they are leaving Germany for America. Trying so desperately to cling to her silence, Marta realizes her only relief is writing letters. Until she meets Emma, and the families she is forced to stay with. While the families try to help Marta find her voice; Marta realizes the only way to sail towards her family, is to sail away from her silence.

"Rose, I'm sorry, but your eyesight will be gone by the end of this year." Who knew one simple sentence could change a life so drastically? Rose is a normal seventeen year old girl with a normal life, normal friends, and what she thought to be normal vision. When she receives the news her vision is slowly deteriorating, she doesn't know what to think. Her life is over. What's a life without being able to see? Enter Chace, a young man who tackled Rose to the ground, mistakingly thinking she was about to commit suicide. He's handsome, suave, and has no idea why Rose is so upset. And even though she is a complete stranger, he decides he wants to help her feel better. With four months until her vision is gone forever, Rose slowly falls in love with this happy-go-lucky young man, but never reveals her problem to him. She's scared. Will he stay with her when he finds out she's going blind? Or will he ditch her when he finds out the truth?