Untrue things are rumored of May Rose, but it’s true she’s too pretty for her own good. Her husband has disappeared, and now she’s on her own in a rough town ruled by one of the lumber companies logging the last of West Virginia’s virgin forest. The year is 1899, and a woman alone has few options. With no resources but a litter of pigs and the attachment of a homeless child, May Rose must find her way home to her family. She wants to be respectable, but she’d do almost anything to save the child who sleeps with a doll clutched tight and a knife under her pillow.