Elaina Ellis would do anything to protect her family - even if it means keeping secrets from them. Elaina has always been a dutiful daughter. When her father suddenly dies in the summer of 1905, she begrudgingly leaves the safety of her life in Philadelphia to return to her hometown. Once there, Elaina encounters the very man responsible for her leaving her home to begin with, as well as a newcomer she distrusts-a man who seems determined to stand in the way of her future. When the newcomer turns out to be yet another man in town Elaina feels she must answer to, she's all too glad to leave him, and everyone else in her small, narrow-minded town, and return to Philadelphia, where she feels she belongs. Convinced that no man should dictate the course of her life, she expects to find solace from her grief and pain in the big city, but is sorely disappointed when everything starts to fall apart. Will the secrets she harbors be her undoing? Will she ever truly find a place she can call home?