Fifteen-year-old artist Georgia Bennett is about to give the small town of Kingsburg a big surprise.
To Georgia, the town looks less like the romantic and unique Main Streets she sees in her art books and more like a military barracks, which is not surprising given the strict leadership of its mayor, a retired Army captain. Georgia’s first attempt at inspiring a bit of art appreciation meets a disastrous end. Not that the people of Kingsburg even notice. They are much more captivated by the controversial photographs taken by the new kid in school, Henry Winters.
Once his photographs spread through town with the destructive power of a tornado, Georgia begins to see how Henry operates. He loves the shock value, the thrill of the chase and the attention.
She decides that for every ugly thing Henry does, she will counteract it with something beautiful, like a magnet, her positive to his negative.
Her efforts, however, are constantly undermined by Henry’s ability to give the town something to really talk about, namely, which person was kissing you-know-who behind the you-know-where. Can art grab people’s attention without airing the town’s dirty laundry on a rope across Main Street? And, if so, could it ever happen in the absolute smallest town in the known universe? Maybe not. Although, with the right plan, she bets she could stir things up a bit.
Her plan certainly grabs attention but for all the wrong reasons, and she discovers that the mayor has a very good and very secret reason why he likes to keep his town ship-shape. And so she puts everything on the line and plans her final masterpiece.
It will be larger than life and impossible to ignore. By doing this, however, she risks more than her reputation: she risks the fury of the mayor, who holds the key to her family’s past—and future.
And she finds that she can ignore the town’s uproar over Henry’s photographs only until his camera captures an image that threatens all that she holds close to her heart.
