After strange things start happening at the Orsk furniture superstore in Cleveland, three employees volunteer to work an overnight shift to investigate, but what they discover is more horrifying than they could have imagined.

The bonds of friendship between four women -- Chris, Barbara, Susan, and Vicki -- have endured for twenty years, sustaining them through marriage, motherhood, and the challenges of life, until a devastating betrayal threatens to tear them apart.

Taking a job as head chef at the most popular BBQ joint in Clearbrook, Ohio, single father Hogan Guthrie butts heads with the restaurants opinionated manager Violet Shaw, while Clearbrook sheriff Nathan Hawley is drawn to his mysterious new neighbor, Brooklin Sweet.

Set after the American Civil War (1861-1865), the novel is inspired by the story of an African American slave, Margaret Garner, who escaped slavery in Kentucky late January 1856 by fleeing to Ohio, a free state. In the novel, the protagonist Sethe is also a slave who escapes slavery, running to Cincinnati, Ohio. After twenty-eight days of freedom, a posse arrives to retrieve her and her children under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which gave slave...