In the days of ancient Israel, Hannah is a woman oppressed. Her once-hopeful marriage is a nightmare, her husband Levi is violently abusive. Hannah believes it is because she is barren, and if she could only give him a child, all would be well. But no child comes, and she does not know how long she can possibly endure. She prays for release and after six long years of Levi's cruelty, he suddenly drowns. Hannah is finally free, free to heal her body and spirit. But she has forgotten brother-in-law marriage, and Levi has a brother. Far from being free, she is given to Joshua, whom she barely knows, and Hannah fears being plunged once more into the nightmare she just left.

Joshua is a virtual stranger for one reason. He fell in love with Hannah the day she married his brother, and he has kept his secret, and his distance. Now he has what he always dreamed; he has his brother's wife. It seems too good to be true, that God has given him his dream. Surely there must be punishment for his coveting.

Indeed there is. All is not well, not with Hannah nor with the farm he inherits with her. Joshua faces a mystery that he must unravel, and in the doing risks losing everything he thought he knew about this brother he loved before Levi's plot traps both Hannah and himself.