Readers who enjoy the novels of writers such as Barbara Kingsolver and E. Annie Proulx will love Laura Hrie, whose prizewinning story collection, Stygo, launched her literary career in 1994. Now, Hrie has delivered a major novel featuring the wily and tenacious twenty-nine-year-old Rose Devonic, a character as memorable, unorthodox, and engaging as any in recent fiction. Rose lives in the tiny mountain town of Queduro, New Mexico, where she--like almost all the inhabitants of the town--makes her living by selling embroidery. However, Rose has no home and no family. In winter she sleeps in one of the cold cabins in a mostly abandoned motel, in summer she lives out of her car. A tragedy in her past, which serves as a constant reminder to her neighbors of their complicity, has made her an outcast. Determined as she is to make a fresh start, Rose's past threatens constantly to engulf her. Only by facing down her ghosts-and her hometown-will she learn how to accept the ultimately liberating challenges of belonging, identity, and love.