Pochoda, Ivy

Pretia, Princess of Epoca, and her best friend, the orphaned outcast Rovi, start their second year at Ecrof, the elite magical sports academy looking forward to the Junior Epic Games. However, nasty rumors begin swirling, and soon the fate of Epoca's most important event is put into doubt. Pretia and Rovi, both star athletes, must make difficult choices that will affect the future of Epoca.

Shows how six people's lives intersect in Southern California--a streaker running through traffic, a young man recently released from juvie, a married lawyer, a drifter searching for a murderer, a young tennis player trying to escape a mistake, and a young man running away from his father's commune. Jumps back and forth through decades to explore the rootless meaning of SoCal lives and examine how past events affect the future.

In Red Hook, Brooklyn, a blue-collar dockside neighborhood one the summer, June and Val, two fifteen-year-olds, take a raft out onto the bay at night to see what they can see, but only Val will survive when she is washed ashore, semi-conscious.