When Penny inquires about a wooden headboard hand-carved by her great-grandfather, she learns, with the help of great-great-uncle, Johnny Elk, of her Cherokee heritage and the special gift The Great Spirit has bestowed upon her.

In North Carolina's Great Smoky Mountains, a troubled boy and his mother, a happy family seeking adventure, a man and his lonely daughter, and the widow who must sell the run-down motel that has been her home for decades, meet and are transformed by their shared experiences.

Living in the family car in their small North Carolina town after their father leaves them virtually penniless, Georgina, desperate to improve their situation and unwilling to accept her overworked mother's calls for patience, persuades her younger brother to help her in an elaborate scheme to get money by stealing a dog and then claiming the reward that the owners are bound to offer.

A collection of five novels that follow the adventures of Mandie, a girl growing up in North Carolina around the turn of the twentieth century, who enlists her good friends Joe and Celia in helping her solve mysteries.