Mormon bishop’s wife Linda Wallheim knows a bit about the LDS church’s history of polygamy, but for mainstream Mormons, that epoch ended in the 1890s. However, there are still sects of fundamentalist Mormons who still practice the Principle of plural marriage -in fact, some of them are living in plain sight here in Utah. And now Linda’s son Kenneth is marrying a young woman who was raised in a polygamist family.

Linda isn’t sure what to expect-will her future daughter-in-law wear 19th-century style long-sleeved prairie dresses and fix her hair in a bouffant braid, like the FLDS women on TV? No, Naomi Cannon is a modern woman, currently in medical school to become an OBGYN, and she seems like a good match for Kenneth-even if they have both left the Mormon faith.
a Linda is very curious about polygamy, though, and now, her future daughter-in-law, Naomi, has presented the perfect excuse for Linda to visit a polygamous compound and satisfy her curiosity. Linda and her husband, Kurt, will drive out to the Cannon residences, discreetly hidden in the mountains overlooking the city, and have dinner with their future in-laws- Edward Cannon, Naomi’s father; his five wives; and their twenty-two collective children. Linda is fascinated and repelled by the Cannons’ lifestyle-how do these modern-seeming people live this way? And why?
While she’s on the compound, Linda has an additional task to perform. Naomi suspects her nine-year-old half-sister, Talitha, is being abused, and asks Linda to check in on Talitha. Maybe Linda, an outsider, will notice something, or be able to get Talitha to open up to her in a way Naomi can’t. As soon as Linda hears there is a little girl in danger, she jumps into action. But snooping on the Cannon compound reveals more secrets than Linda could ever have imagined-and some of them are worth killing to keep.