"Adam and Eve was naked in the Garden'a Eden," her voice purred. "Bein' naked ain't no sin." Here we have Godiva Beamer, a sexually mature but emotionally challenged fourteen year old. She is the daughter of Reverend Elijah Beamer, a fanatical preacher/abusive father. Our setting is Fork River, a claustrophobic, 1950s southern town. Godiva befriends Carly Moore, an uneducated eighteen year old farm boy who works unceasingly for his drunken step-father. Accused of assaulting and raping Godiva, Carly is arrested. The extenuating circumstances soon become clear as the story line moves from the young couple's strange friendship to the courtroom and beyond, focusing not only on Godiva and Carly, but also on those connected to the crime. Baby Godiva is about race and class as it manifests itself through the legal system, prison, capital punishment and the prevailing attitudes of the era. It delves not only into the lives of Godiva and Carly, but into the wife and mistress of the judge trying the case. It's also about the sexual politics of the time, the curse of beauty and how society can so easily manipulate the emotionally immature and uneducated.