Senator Bob Moreland's political career is invested in the conservative movement that fights against embryonic stem cell research. With his wife's help, he spreads the message that killing babies to cure people is inherently wrong. Moreland is hoping his son, Josh, will follow him into the political arena when he leaves college, but for now Josh is preparing for his 18th birthday and enjoying life with his BMX buddies.

Moreland's best friend and political rival, Mike Miller, sits in the opposite camp. Armed with his 17-year-old daughter, Courtney, he sets off for a trip to India to see how stem cell research has advanced and where it may lead in the curing of diseases and spinal cord injuries. Plus, it's the trip of a lifetime for Courtney.

Dr. Preet Walia is a neurologist in India, working at the research hospital that Senator Miller is visiting. The doctor is about to relocate to Kansas City to take up the prestigious job of attending neurologist. As he sees his final patients, he feels some guilt at leaving them behind, but the opportunity to work in America is too good to give up.

Floyd, a Vietnam vet, hates Senator Moreland passionately and plots a violent revenge for a lifetime of losses. Esperanza came to America for a better life. Now she looks after her aging father and teenage son between jobs and housework, and wonders what happened to her "better life." Melinda Bryant-Elliott is intensely interested in stem cell research both as a daughter of a father who's slipping into the black void of Alzheimer's and as a medical researcher at St. Albert's Hospital in Kansas City.

These are some of the characters living in this intensely insightful book, written with compassion and sensitivity on a compelling and often divisive subject. You will read of life-altering decisions made as the threads of each story line begin to converge into one gripping climax.

This brilliant portrayal of ordinary people living complicated lives is a must-read book.