On a sweltering August morning, Jane Guy steps from an island plane into a strange and dangerous world. The awkward, insecure child of a world-renowned physician and a beautiful Bostonian ballerina, she has come to attend Queen"s Medical School on a tiny Indonesian island.For an exorbitant enrollment fee, Queen"s is willing to accept any American child of privilege who has been rejected by all normal medical schools. Not bound by American law, the school specializes in motivating problem students--no matter what the cost to each student. For Jane, given the transgression of her past, Queen"s is her last chance.Surrounded by jungle and sea, Jane is plunged into unrelenting heat and the psychological abuse of the teaching staff. The truest connection she makes on the island is with another student, Keefer. Together they spend their few spare minutes watching as Jonah--a shark that Keefer keeps captive in an ocean pen--slowly circles his cage.As days extend into weeks, Jane feels herself changing, retreating deeper into a body and spirit she no longer recognizes. And as an aura of desperation deepens among her peers, Jane"s determination to succeed grows. Because failure is the only way off the island, and for Jane, it is not an option.