With incidents of unwed pregnancies dramatically increasing during the seventeenth century, legal and moral authorities revised an English statute, making the concealment of a bastard child's death a capital crime in a bid for moral restoration. Rather than face a life marred by disgrace and isolation, many women carrying an illegitimate child chose to tempt fate, concealing both their condition and eventual birth.
Based on documented events in the life of Sarah Smith, this historical fiction offers an alternative perspective to the condemnation portrayed by Reverend Cotton Mather in his 1702 publication Magnalia Christi Americana.
With roots tracing back to the original settlement, Katie Day attends her ten-year class reunion at the academy in Old Deerfield, Massachusetts, where she discovers Mary Wells's journal, dating back over three hundred years. Captivated by Mary's account of frontier life and her growing friendship with Sarah Smith, Katie finds herself drawn into the story of these women and embarks on a mission to uncover the truth behind the death of Sarah Smith's child, conceived by a man not her husband. She seeks to free Sarah's soul from the guilt that binds her to this earthly realm.