Coming-of-age brother/sister twins ache to escape their small-minded town with its hushed whispers about their strange mother, but when they both fall for a handsome drifter, it unearths a haunting family secret.

SYNOPSIS:

Brief Synopsis of Scuppernongs by Lynne Ashe (includes spoilers)

Coming of age in a small North Carolina town, 16-year-old twins Shane (male) and Sam (female) Strickland are heirs to a vineyard empire. They spent months planning to run away, but their grandfather’s recent passing delayed their plan. They must now work their final harvest before they can escape. They feel ostracized by the town; Shane is gay and closeted. Sam is ridiculed by her peers because she hasn’t yet started menstruation. To make matters worse, the twins’ mother is mentally ill and the subject of town gossip. The twins have never even heard her speak.

Will, an artist drifter, comes into town and is hired for harvest. Both Shane and Sam have crushes on this dark mysterious stranger and vie for his attention. Meanwhile, Sam’s boyfriend Colin, who has always acted dominating and abusive towards Sam, becomes more and more threatening. Colin is the son of the town’s racist Mayor, who is currently running for re-election. Will is of eastern Indian descent [alternately, Hispanic], and his brown skin in this primarily white town makes him a target. On the romance front, Will turns down Sam’s advances and becomes closer with Shane. Their friendship turns intimate.

The twins’ mother discovers Shane and Will in a sexual encounter. This pulls her out of her silence, and she violently attacks Will. Aunt Evy tells the twins that it’s time they learned their history. She tells them that when they were three years old, there was an incident with a dog and Sam was critically injured. The twins had been born as both male, but Sam’s genitals were destroyed in the attack, and the doctors said that the only way for Sam to have a life of normalcy was to perform gender reassignment surgery. The children were never told about their past. The owners of the town newspaper witness this confession, and they promise Shane that they will not publish the news until the twins have left town. They break this promise, and the news is published the next morning. Sam is brutally attacked and raped by Colin and his gang, because Colin is humiliated that Sam is transgender. Colin sets the vineyards on fire as Sam lies unconscious. Ten years later, Shane has written a bestselling book telling his sister’s story. Sam joins Shane on stage at the reading. There is a flashback to the moment that Colin starts the fire. We see that Sam actually escaped the flames while it was Colin who perished.