When Tess’ dad asks her what she wants for her 16th birthday, she tells him she wants a teepee. What ensues is a summer of extreme adventure and togetherness as Tess and her best friend Lisa spend three months living in a teepee high in the mountains of Crested Butte, Colorado.

Struggling with bulimia, which remains unnamed in 1979, Tess is nonchalant about the central role it plays in her life, telling herself “If no one knows about it, it doesn’t matter.” But she’s haunted by her mom’s untimely death and her dad’s heavy drinking. Her relationship with a good-looking but flaky boy isn’t helping. Lisa  has her own reasons to flee civilization, which she scribbles surreptitiously in her locked diary (excerpts appear in each chapter.)

A cinnamon bear – revered in American Indian lore – alternately fascinates and terrifies the girls as they attempt to adapt the survival skills of the Indians.

For a while, rugged mountain life seems to heal Tess, but when Lisa has to go home for a week, Tess’ “puking” spirals out of control and she has a terrifying brush with arrhythmia – irregular heartbeat caused by electrolyte imbalance. The possibility that she will die on the bathroom floor is suddenly very real.

Returning to the teepee with her little brother, she begins carving a mark in a pine tree for every day she resists the powerful urge to ‘pig out.’ Lisa returns and the fast friends enjoy days of simple wonder in Oh Be Joyful Canyon, where their only neighbors are as whistling marmots in a nearby field, trout in the creek that runs past the teepee and tittering alpine birds.

On a trip to town for supplies, the girls are invited to visit Aspen by one of Tess’ dad’s strange friends. The girls undertake an epic –and very ill-equipped — backpacking trip across the Conundrum Trail to Aspen, crossing the Continental Divide. Tess’ admiration of her close friend is challenged when Lisa seems to succumb to the sleazy advances their cocaine-peddling host, who introduces them to Aspen’s glitzy social scene. The friendship is further threatened after they return to Crested Butte, when Lisa commits a drunken act of betrayal. Disillusioned and alone, Tess heads for the teepee by herself.

In the story’s surprising conclusion, the Cinnamon Girls discover that each of them has kept major secrets from their best friend. Learning the truth allows each girl to find a new appreciation for her friend’s authentic self. The Cinnamon Bear lumbers up in a final scene, performing a symbolic act that fulfills his Indian nickname of “First Helper.”

Cinnamon Girls is a crossover YA novel based on a true story. It is represented by Brianne Johnson & Michele Rubin at Writer’s House literary agency, NYC.