1856: Luna, a thrice-escaped slave, flees Cloch County to save herself and her daughter.

2016: Lew, a White widowed dad, relocates to Cloch County to save himself and his daughter.

When his wife is killed in a car crash, Lew Harra decides to relocate with his twelve-year old daughter Amy from St. Louis to an inherited homesteaded house deep in the Missouri Ozarks, hoping to find a new life for the two of them. He finds far more. Jewel, a Black neighbor who helps care for the family garden, becomes a vital link with the past and present. Their attraction promises to blossom into something far more than either Lew or Jewel imagines. But these ancient Ozarkian hills also hold secrets and dangers, past and present, that threaten everything Lew and Jewel care about. Family histories, the Klan, the Russian mob, racial politics and personal passions conspire and collide in a vivid story of life, love, death and reckoning.