Winner of the IPPY Gold Medal award for Mid-Atlantic - Best Regional Fiction Born and raised on an isolated Appalachian mountain, sixteen-year-old Marli Meade yearns to break free from her father's diabolical church but fears its clutches are so deep she may never escape. When she meets local boy Nate Porter, though, she realizes the life she craves is worth fighting for even with the grave risk that fight would entail. As her two worlds collide, exposing buried church secrets more sinister than she imagined and unknown facts about her mother's death, Marli must decide if she has the courage to fight for her future or if time has run out on her chance to live.