Nita, a young millennial in Chicago, decides to record interviews with her hook-ups as part of a sociologically-influenced art project. But when she falls in love with one of her subjects—a woman with an obscure past and a web of scars on her back—Nita finds herself drawn into a supernatural world from which she may never return.

California has seceded from America, and Molly and her daughter Phoebe run a bookstore that straddles the troubled border of the two countries. When outright war breaks out, Molly and Phoebe must protect their customers - American and Californian alike - but the customers are not all willing to get along.