Ada, the indomitable matriarch with one child already buried, is heading toward another heartbreak, as book two of the multigenerational family epic, The Oakleys, begins. This unwavering woman dreads how many more of her beautiful, brilliant children the temptations of the Roaring 20s will steal from her and Walter, her husband.

Ralph should have been the least likely to wound Ada's heart. Most of his life, she had leaned on her oldest and strongest offspring to help with his younger siblings. Ralph appeared to have everything needed to excel in life. But in the opening of Runners, Ralph is peeling bills from a fat roll of currency on the deck of a shrimp boat that will soon be chugging into the swelling waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Ralph, proud to be called a gangster and hunted by the Texas Rangers, was sailing out for another shipment of illegal liquor, only weeks after his brother Glenn had been murdered in the rum wars.

At home, Ralph's sister Maryon was locked in a battle with her high school faculty and principal determined to deny her an honor that she had earned. They insisted that the prize rightfully belonging to Maryon must be given to a male student with lower grades.

Jimmie, the little sister who could not compete with Maryon, even if Maryon had moved two-hundred miles away, had none of Maryon's poise and confidence. Jimmie covered her insecurity with a gruff, often crude, exterior. Jimmie smoked with the boys, cussed with the boys, and by spring, she was drinking with the boys, too.

There is more on Ada's list of potential disasters. At least two marriages go wrong early. Another seemingly perfect marriage fails to happen. Brooks' lifelong dream dies in a single tragic night. Ray becomes the second Oakley son to repeatedly disappear, seeming to repeat the pattern of Glenn's brief and tragic life and placing Ada in a dungeon of despair. Ada's anxiety for the welfare of her adult children became constant as three of them are enmeshed in World War II.