When Elliott calls his first wife, Helen, it’s because he always knows how to approach her with what he wants. Elliott wants her to come to Ponderosa Academy to produce the play The Tempest.

Willa has had a rough and rocky life. She has been forced to move many times, and she dreads the sight of the Volvo crammed with her mother and her belongings. She is a talented artist and is preparing for an art show when her father shows up. She is given a choice of going or staying. She made her mother a promise prior to her death, "that if anything ever happened to her, I would find a man named Elliot Barrow and deliver a message for her... Three days later, she was killed in an explosion in New Jersey." Her mother had an untimely death in an accident where she was living. But just why does Willa have to look up a man named Elliot Barrow? She had never heard of him. Just what could the connection be?

Miranda Beverly-Whittemore tells the story through the words of Cal, the assistant Headmaster at Ponderosa Academy. This book is not written as most books are, but the style works for the story. Each character is fleshed out by writing the words of one character followed by another character. The girls, Amelia and Willa, are very well identified. They have more similarities than one would expect. I had difficulty getting into this book initially. The style is very different from the books that I normally read. Set Me Free could easily have been a true story, even though it says it is fiction. This book would be a fantastic read for anybody who likes mystery and drama blended together.