A young man from East Germany travels to San Francisco to search for his father, who fled 12 years ago.

On the coast of Cork, Syracuse is a fisherman, on the wagon, living alone. His precocious daughter, Annie, about 10, has failing kidneys. One day, a nearly-drowned young woman comes up in his net; she speaks oddly, calls herself Ondine, and wants no one to see her. He puts her up in an isolated cottage that was his mother's. Annie discovers Ondine's presence and believes she's a selkie, a mythical seal turned human while on land. If this is a fairy tale, is there a happily ever after, or do the realities of alcohol, illness, and worse intrude, including Syracuse's inveterate bad luck? As his priest tell him, misery's easy, it's happiness you have to work at. Any hope of that?

Adriana is a 13-year-old girl from Mexico City whose kidnapping by sex traffickers sets in motion a desperate mission by her 17-year-old brother, Jorge, to save her. Trapped and terrified by an underground network of international thugs who earn millions exploiting their human cargo, Adriana's only friend and protector throughout her ordeal is Veronica, a young Polish woman tricked into the trade by the same criminal gang. As Jorge dodges immigration officers and incredible obstacles to track the girls' abductors, he meets Ray, a Texas cop whose own family loss to sex trafficking leads him to become an ally in the boy's quest. Fighting with courage and hard-tested faith, the characters of Trade negotiate their way through the unspeakable terrain of the sex trade "tunnels" between Mexico and the United States. From the barrios of Mexico City and the treacherous Rio Grande border...