Identical twins Stella and Desiree Vignes are as different as they are inseparable during their childhood in a small Black community in the Jim Crow South. But after they flee to New Orleans as teenagers, their lives diverge more dramatically than anyone could have predicted. Years later, Desiree, always the wild one, returns home to Louisiana, surprising her light-skinned family with a dark-skinned daughter. And studious Stella, having discovered she can pass as white, lives a lie in a tony Los Angeles suburb, with a rich husband, a blond daughter, and no connection to her roots. Told via intertwining narratives from the perspectives of the twins and their daughters, this penetrating and unputdownable novel deftly tackles complex issues of race, identity, gender, and family all while telling a wonderful, immensely compelling story.