Still a stranger to her own body, a high school student discovers she has a physical advantage when she becomes the object of male violence.[/center]

Sir Kenneth Clark begins his landmark 1969 series on the history of civilisation with the re establishment of civilisation in Western Europe, in the tenth century after the fall of Rome to barbarism. He travels from Byzantine Ravenna to Celtic Hebrides examining aqueducts, cathedrals, the lives of the Vikings and of the Holy Roman Emperor Charlamagne.

Dawn grows up in the shadow of a nuclear power plant. In high school, while her biology class studies evolution, she realizes she may have a hidden curse, an adaptation. She lives with her mom, step-father, and hard-edged step-brother. She likes Tobey, a guy at school, and he likes her. She takes a pledge to remain chaste until marriage, so they date in groups, watch G-rated films, and don t kiss, but the power of teen hormones is great, so temptation beckons. Dawn has an admirer in Ryan, and when she breaks it off unexpectedly with Tobey, she turns to Ryan for help. Will he be her mythical hero and rescue her? Or can she find her way as her own hero, turning the curse into an asset?