Honeysuckle Holiday enters on the life of twelve-year-old protagonist, Lucy. It takes place in the south, in the late 1960s. Lucy struggles internally to come to terms with her parents' sudden and mysterious divorce. She finds herself thrust-almost overnight-from a world of comfort and privilege into one of near marginality. When her mother hires a black woman to help her, the situation intensifies. As the story progresses, Lucy learns the mystery behind her parents' divorce-her father's uncharacteristic, almost unforgivable immersion in the KKK. Lucy comes to shed her unknowing racism, taking her beyond the ideals of youth-her love of books and the trappings of childhood knit closely to her very fiber. She learns to peel back the layers of human frailty (her own included) painful piece by painful piece, while struggling to hold on to the comforts of innocence.