The summer before Troy Stotts turns seventeen, his mother dies. Troy and his father barely speak, mostly communicating instead by writing notes on a legal pad by the phone. Troy spends most of his time with his closest friends: Tom Buller, brash and fearless, the son of a drunk; Gabe Benavidez, smart enough to know he’ll never take over the family ranch; and Gabe’s sister Luz, whose family overprotects her, and who Troy has loved since they were children.
Troy and his friends don’t want trouble. They want this to be the summer of what Troy calls “ghost medicine,” when time seems to stop, so they won’t have to face the past, or the future. But before the summer is over, their paths will cross with people in dangerous and fateful ways.
Troy and his friends want to be invisible. Instead, they will become what they least expect–brothers, lovers, heroes, and ghosts.


From the Compact Disc edition.