In 1944 Ruth Martin was to be a freshman in the fall at Walnut Grove High School. A farm girl with a promising future, a best friend, a mostly loving family, and in love from afar with graduating senior Jack Rollins, who lived just up the road from Rolling Hills Farm. Drafted, Jack Rollins has also noticed Ruth and proposes to visit her, just to talk, before leaving for the service. This supposedly secret encounter launches a landslide of passion, blackmail, rape, incest, shame, lies, pregnancy, scheming, murder, pain, and romance. Ruth runs to Chicago where she marries rich Don Bowman but...

The teens of Promise Land were becoming discontented with their lives, especially Daniel and Noah. The two's farms joined each other, and the two best friends often had secret conversations along the property line. As they grew into teenagers, the two realized that this was how the founding fathers envisioned them to live, but they dared not openly question the church elders about it, as this would surely bring harsh punishment upon them. As time passed, more and even younger girls were taken from their families, and sent to the far end of Promise Land to marry older men, leaving a shortage...