From her first performance at the age of eleven in her tiny hometown of Leavenworth, Kansas, to her early attempts at making it as a musician in Boston and Los Angeles clubs to her first record contract, Melissa Etheridge's road to stardom involved years of hard work and struggle. Perhaps no other popular musician is more difficult to define than Etheridge. She is one of the few women to achieve stardom in the boys' club of mainstream rock. She is openly lesbian, but refuses to conform to anyone else's idea of what she or her music should be. Now, with five platinum albums and two Grammys to her name, she is facing the most exciting challenge of her life - balancing her roles as musician, role model, lover, and mother. Chris Nickson delivers a well-rounded account of Etheridge's triumphant personal and professional journey into music history.