Eliza Walcott is going to have the dullest summer of her entire fifteen years. Her parents have carted her off to live with her aunt and uncle for the summer, in a little boondock town off the coast of Washington, while they are on a business tripin Florida, of all places. At least shell have a little recreation time. Not. Her dear Uncle Pat is making her get a summer job. Off the coast of Washington. In the middle of nowhere. When she is fifteen years old. Not going to happen, right? Wrong. Much to Elizas disgust, she lands a job as a natural history illustrator for a creepy old man, Mr. Tanner, who enjoys gathering old dinosaur bones and studying them for kicks. Yep, her summer is officially sunk. As Eliza starts her new job (grudgingly, at best) she is drawn in by the sense that something is very different about her employers, Orville Tanner and his handsome grandson, Charlie. Even as her romance with Charlie grows, questions still float around in Elizas mind. Why cant they just take photographs of the bones instead of somebody drawing them? Why are they so secretive about their work? What exactly are they trying to accomplish with their findings? Eliza is content to not ask questions until Mr. Tanner requests her to draw a mammoth dinosaur skullwith some flesh still on it! Curious and worried by these events, Eliza sets out to discover the Tanners dark secret. What she didnt plan on was stepping into something that was a little over her head&. Its not a fossil, I said, and I wasnt questioning him. Just like the Maiacetus skull, it was ancient but not fossilized. No, its not, he said plainly.