In a stark， troubling， yet ultimately triumphant celebration of self-determination， award-winning author A. Manette Ansay re-creates a stifling world of guilty and pain， and the tormented souls who inhabit it. It is 1972 when circumstance carries Ellen Grier and her family back to Holly s Field， Wisconsin. Dutifully accompanying her newly unemployed husband， Ellen has brought her two children into the home of her in-laws on Vinegar Hill -- a loveless house suffused with the settling dust of bitterness and routine -- where calculated cruelty is a way of life preserved and perpetuated in the service of a rigid， exacting and angry God. Behind a facade of false piety， there are sins and secrets in this place that could crush a vibrant young woman s passionate spirit. And here Ellen must find the straight to endure， change， and grow in the all-pervading darkness that threatens to destroy everything she is and everyone she loves.