It is 1844 and Lacey Bishop's life is a tangled mess. Estranged from her own family, at age 16 she went to work for a preacher and his wife. When his wife died, the preacher convinced Lacey that the only decent thing to do was to marry him. That way she could continue to act as mother to the little girl who was left on his doorstop. But Lacey never expected he would decide to take them all off to a Shaker village. There she's still married but living...

Kimberla Lawson Roby tells the story of Tanya Black, an honest, faithful, independent woman who is struggling to come to terms with her failing marriage. The Black household is swiftly deteriorating. Frustrated and angry at her prosperous preacher husband's obvious infidelities, Tanya cannot believe the man she once loved has been replaced by this pathological liar obsessed with material wealth. But Tanya loves their daughter Alicia and is reluctant...

After the former wife of a local celebrity is charged with his murder, minister's wife Aggie Sloan-Wilcox seeks divine inspiration to help clear the woman's name.

Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by a canny young drifter and together they crafted a life on the run. Despite some petty violence and moments of desperation, their life was laced with moments of joy and love. When Lila arrives in Gilead, she struggles to reconcile the life of her makeshift family and their days of hardship with the gentle Christian worldview of her husband which paradoxically judges those she loves.

"Charlotte Collins, nee Lucas, is the respectable wife of Hunsford's vicar, and sees to her duties by rote: keeping house, caring for their adorable daughter, visiting parishioners, and patiently tolerating the lectures of her awkward husband and his condescending patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Intelligent, pragmatic, and anxious to escape the shame of spinsterhood, Charlotte chose this life, an inevitable one so socially acceptable that its...

Maintaining a cordial relationship with the unfaithful Charlotte while planning a divorce when their son graduates from high school, the Reverend Curtis Black resists his wife's efforts to reconcile and considers a proposition by a woman who desperately wants to marry him.