Set six months before the original novel The Outsiders, Joellen "Joey" Baros is ordered by the court to stay with her cousins down in Tulsa, Oklahoma after the murder of her parents. Joey has known the whole greaser gang before, meeting them when they were around six. Now she's finding she has feelings for a member of the gang... Will she be able to handle what they're really like? Will she be able to handle her own messed up life? Or will she crumble under the pressure?