Failed novelist Andrew Thale is sent by his father to check out an empty farmhouse, inherited from an aunt in Massachusetts. On arrival, Thale discovers the house has been occupied by squatters, characters straight out of a novel. Thale moves in with them, perhaps to gain inspiration for a bestseller.

"Tuck is slow to understand the circumstances that have driven her family to an uninhabited island off the coast of Maine, the former home of her deceased grandmother where she once spent her childhood summers. Squatting there now, she must care for her spirited young daughter and scrape together enough money to leave before winter arrives-or before they are found out. Relying on the island for sustenance and answers-bladderwrack, rosehips, tenacious...

"The conventional one in a non-conventional family, Penny Baker inherits her father's childhood home in New Jersey. She finds the property not overgrown and abandoned, but occupied by a group of friendly anarchist squatters whom she finds unexpectedly charming, and who have renamed the property Nicotine House. The residents are defenders of smokers' rights, and they possess the type of passion and fervor Penny feels she's desperately lacking. As her...

"Ranjit Singh, a former Indian Army Captain trying to escape a shameful past, lives with his family among the migrant workers of Martha's Vineyard, working as a caretaker of the vacation homes of the rich and powerful. Needing a place to stay, Ranjit moves his family into an empty Senator's home. Happily, but illegally ensconced in the house, he tries to forget his brief affair with Anna, the wife of an African-American senator, and focus on providing...

Fifteen-year-old Pearl is squatting in an abandoned boathouse with her father, a disgraced college professor, and two other grown men, deep in the swamps of the American South. All four live on the fringe, scavenging what they can-catfish, lumber, scraps for their ailing dog. Despite the isolation, Pearl feels at home with her makeshift family: the three men care for Pearl and teach her what they know of the world. Mason Boyd, aka "Main Boy," is from...

"After she is diagnosed with a terminal illness, Katherine abandons her successful advertising firm and seeks refuge in the solitude of her wilderness cabin. Living off the land in complete isolation brings Katherine peace - until the day she realizes she is not alone, and never was. Katherine's sudden and unanticipated arrival at the cabin unsettles Danny, a Vietnam veteran tormented by the demons of his past, who has been squatting in the previously...