First published 2008
Ann Eliza Young walks away from her marriage to Brigham Young, the Mormon prophet, in 1875. Cast out from the church, she launches a public campaign against polygamy across America. Her story reveals how she and her mother entered plural marriage and the secrets of polygamous family life. In modern Utah, Jordan Scott returns to the fundamentalist community that expelled him years ago. His father has died under suspicious circumstances, and Jordan must navigate the closed world he once fled to uncover what happened. The murder investigation pulls him back into the beliefs and people he tried to escape. As Ann Eliza fights her nineteenth-century battle and Jordan searches for answers about his father's death, both stories explore the weight of family loyalty against personal freedom. The past and present converge around questions of faith, love, and the price of challenging powerful religious traditions.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, mystery, 21st-century, 19th-century
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, past-present-converge
Setting: Utah, America
Period: 1875, Modern
514 pages · Hardcover · Random House
Content warnings: murder