As Charlotte drew closer to the looming grey edifice that was to become her temporary home, she could not help but notice the secretive shuttered windows. Then she noticed the milkweeds... Even a proper vicar's daughter can make a mistake--and now Charlotte Lamb must pay a high price for her fall. To avoid the prying eyes of all who know her, she hides herself away in London's forbidding "Milkweed Manor," a place of mystery and lore, of old secrets...

Marilynne Robinson discusses and reads from her book Gilead with James Wood.

Torn between her forbidden art and the Amish church, Annie Zook, the preacher's daughter, moves from her childhood home to live with her shunned friend, Esther, which increases her community's disapproval of her.

"In rural Iowa, life is both the planter and uprooter of dreams. As love, long delayed, springs to life in the heart of a young Swedish immigrant, one man struggles with his withered ambitions--and new blessings that could take their place if he would but allow them room."--Page 4 of cover.

Annie Zook--the preacher's eldest daughter--is expected to join the Amish church, but at 20 she is 'still deciding.' Because of the strict rules that guide the Plain community, she must continually squelch her artistic passion, although it has become her solace.

"Life changes drastically for Ruth Livingstone the day her father puts a young child in her arms and sends her under an assumed name to a small village in New Jersey. There she dutifully awaits his acquittal, certain that her father, Reverend Livingstone, soon will be cleared of the outrageous accusations against him. When tragic events transpire, Ruth finds solace tending a garden along the banks of the Toms River--a place where she can find a measure...