When teenaged Rachel Durham finds a way that she and her eleven stepsisters can sneak out of their Chesapeake Bayside home after midnight, their troubled fundamentalist father enlists the help of Paul Fester, an ex-soldier and traveling juggler, to find out what the girls are up to. A modern retelling of Grimm’s fairy tale “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.”
Why live in the light, when the night seems so irresistible?
Rachel Durham, 18, is tired of her father and stepmother’s staid morality and pristine prosperity.The summer of her senior year, she’s more than ready for a walk on the wild side, and the door opens — literally — when she and her eleven sisters and stepsisters discover a secret passageway out of their historic home on the Chesapeake Bay.At night, boys in boats and a forbidden island beckon from the shore, and Rachel and her sisters jump aboard.The night becomes Rachel’s true world, and her daytime life becomes a disposable mask.Her puzzled father tries to tow his daughters back into line by enlisting the help of Paul, a med student with a seasonal job juggling at the town festival.But Paul realizes that simply blocking the girls from their midnight parties isn’t going to solve the family’s problems.So he embarks on a risky balancing act to gain the girls’ trust – and to make Rachel see that splitting her life between night and light is a dangerous dance.