Eleven-year-old Bailey Fish is abruptly sent from Florida by her mother to live with her grandmother, Sugar, in Virginia. While Bailey adjusts to her new home, Sugar investigates the source of pollution in Contrary Creek where there used to be gold mining.

To complicate matters, a neighbor is out to get Sugar. He’s the father of Justin Rudd, a bully on Bailey’s school bus. Justin’s father doesn’t scare Sugar because she comes from a family of Wild Women. Sugar proudly tells Bailey stories about all of them, including Maie, who was a spy in World War I.

Inspired by Sugar’s stories and what she finds in her grandmother’s attic–a secret box of letters and Mae’s hat–Bailey decides to become a Wild Woman herself. She heads into a dark woods to look for gold nuggets and the former gold mine for her school project. But what she discovers is not what she expects… .

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