What provokes one child down a dangerous path, while her cousin takes a less tortuous direction in life? A mere six months apart in age, the girls were born near the end of World War Two, when a war tragedy set the stage for Ginger Drake's calamitous life. Ginger's 'sister at heart', cousin Glory Clayborne, has all she can do to protect the incorrigible Ginger from herself, to say nothing of the many evils lying in wait.