Born and raised on an isolated Appalachian mountain, sixteen-year-old Marli Meade yearns to break free from her father’s diabolical church but fears its clutches are so deep she may never escape. When she meets local boy Nate Porter, though, she realizes the life she craves—to be a normal teenager—is worth fighting for, even with the grave and deadly risk that fight would entail.

Seven years ago, an innocent act by Rowan Slone turned her life into a nightmare. Since the age of ten she’s lived with the burden of her baby brother’s death. Now she is seventeen and all she wants to do is graduate high school, go to college, and escape the loveless family she has endured all these years—the same family that holds her responsible for his death. But no one holds her responsible more than herself.