Amanda decides to go to college in Indiana, away from Phoenix and a mother she thinks is too protective and the tension between her divorced parents.
Susan, Amanda's mother, works to adjust to life without her daughter around, while dealing with the disintegration of her family and her less than satisfactory job as a lawyer in a large law firm.
Amanda revels in the freedom of university life away from her over-protective mom, while Susan feels adrift as her attempts to fill Amanda's absence with romance and ambition prove disappointing. When Amanda joins a religious commune, drawn in by its seductive promise of certainty and love, Susan fears she has lost Amanda to a cult.
Crosswind is a compelling weave of Amanda's and Susan's intertwined stories that show the appeal and danger of living in a closed community with a charismatic leader and the fraught relationship of a mother and daughter looking for a safe place to call home.