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Published by Atheneum, New York
Copyright 1980 - ISBN 0-689-30739-X
When fourteen year old Anna's single parent father enlists during World War 11, Anna is overjoyed at the chance to stay with the Raymonds in a small California beach town. She has spent summers with them and desperately wants to be a part of their family. She wants to live in a "real" home and help care for the two hundred rose bushes Dr. Raymond treats like extra patients.
However, she soon finds that living with them full time is different from visiting summers. Her foster sister, Paula, thinks her parents prefer Anna so she won't speak to her at school and locks her in a closet. Dr. Raymond is suspicious of every boy who comes for a date and says Annals a bad influence on Paula. Though awakening to boys, feeling oppressed by so many new rules, and missing the father who trained her to be independent, Anna keeps trying to change herself into a Raymond.
After a year of mounting tensions Mrs. Raymond warns Anna that if the fighting doesn't stop she'll have to move. Anna knows she'd never suggest Paula move and realizes she can never really belong. one night when Dr. Raymond waits up until she comes in from a date they argue and he predicts she'll end up raped by the side of the road. Anna knows it's time to leave. She tells him she can only be herself and calls an uncle who had offered her a home. Anna is on her own again.
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