Jodi Picoult's harrowing and heart-wrenching new novel, House Rules, tells the story of a single mother whose teenaged son is locked in a world where ordinary rules don't apply...unless you kill someone.

Emma Hunt never complains. Not when she learned that Jacob, her brilliant first child, had Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism. And not when her husband, unable to cope, left her while pregnant with Theo, her youngest. Instead, Emma manages. Her job writing an advice column puts food on the table and allows her flexibility should Jacob, now a senior in high school, have one of his terrifying meltdowns. But thankfully, Jacob's interest in forensic analysis has become an obsession that keeps him focused–maybe too much. When Jacob's life-skills coach, a lovely young college student, is found murdered and Jacob is questioned, his intimate knowledge of the crime scene compounded by his discomfiting tics and twitches infer guilt, and earn him an indictment for murder.

With her signature sensitivity, Picoult shines a light on what it means to be different in a harsh, judgmental world and the profound effect it has on a troubled family.