An old coffee table picture book of Santa Barbara plays an unexpected role in bringing together three souls for a disastrous Thanksgiving dinner. Joey Michaels is a washed-up singer/songwriter and manager who is hanging on to his career and past as it spirals away. Laurel Burgess is a wry and insightful college intern who endears herself to Joey through a string of carefully planned outings designed to help him re-enter the world he struggles to understand. Gale Rivers, a bohemian waitress who has reinvented herself in Alaska, finally realizes her life-long dream to visit the beauty of Santa Barbara only to have it become a nightmare. Their lives intersect during an impromptu Thanksgiving meal together that reveals secrets from the past and present that ultimately sends each of them running away in different directions to rebuild their lives. In the process, Joey captures the experience in songs that are eventually recorded and released by an up-and-coming singer, Bessie James. Years later, two seemingly random radio broadcasts bouncing off the ionosphere provide the balm to heal their wounds and the courage to carry on. Told through a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards, Back Story is truly the backstory of three people exploring who they are and who they hope to be. A unique feature of the book is embedded QR codes the reader can scan with their smartphones to hear original songs that are part of the story.