How It Happened in Peach Hill
 The story is about Annie, a teenage girl, and her mother, the amazing Madame Caterina, a self-styled clairvoyant. They move from town to town swindling people out of their money, trading on their suffering and secrets. The mother uses her daughter to follow people around posing as an idiot so she can listen in on their conversations. Caterina then uses the common gossip the daughter has procured to predict the troubles that the person (usually a woman) is suffering. When they arrive at Peach Hill in New York, Annie decides she wants to be a normal girl with a normal life. When her mother begins to flirt with a supposedly wealthy man, Annie seizes the opportunity to have an episode and magically gain intelligence. The mother and daughter spend the book trying to outthink each other to get what they want: Caterina wanting money and a steady stream of customers, Annie wanting to go to school, make friends, and impress the handsome Sammy Sloane.