Susan Asta, a young Christian mother befriends a prostitute named Cynthia Hickey, who has a crisis pregnancy and later gives birth to a daughter. The angelic little girl named Charlene is killed by her mother's former pimp and a terrible trial ensues. However, neither the press nor the public see the mother as a victim; but hold her accountable for the death instead of the man who escapes. Cynthia's friend Susan risks her life to exact retribution in this scintillating story of love and revenge. George Eliot returns to the modern era to paint a portrait of life not in England, but in New England.