A woman alone on the streets of New York City, Emma Clarke is a lonely American girl few options. Kicked out by her family after becoming pregnant to a brutal rapist, the sexual abuse she has suffered makes her unwanted, just another homeless person swallowed by the city. All that changes when she is taken in by a kindly restaurant owner and his wife. Allowed to stay in return for work, Emma starts a new life for herself and her daughter, Rosa, where family relationships are judged by bonds stronger than blood. The family saga is cut short, however, when her benefactors die tragically and Emma and Rosa once again find themselves without a home. Enter Tim Johnson, owner of the largest engineering company in California and also the widowed husband of Emma's sister. He sees the potential in Emma's beauty and promises her rags to riches, inviting her to his house to be his housekeeper - as long as she sleeps with him. A woman alone with no other options and such epic choices of poverty or wealth before her, what else can she do? This American girl may find, however, that Tim's promises fall short as the family relationships she struggles to build take unexpected turns and end up in the most unlikely of places. A rags to riches family saga where epic choices change the course of a family's future, 'Desperate Lives' tells the story of one woman's determination to make a better life for herself.