Book excerpt: It is 1860. Maggie, a widow with two teenage daughters, runs a rooming house smack dab on the town square. This fact alone makes her a social outcast boarding houses are not exactly respectable. And her collection of eclectic boarders a failed aging writer, an undertaker's apprentice, a struggling young lawyer, and an old Irishman only brings her snubs and snide comments, as does her friendship with Emily and Nate, an African-American couple with whom she shares her home and chores. So Maggie is stunned when she is asked to provide a room for Jeremiah Madison, the new Methodist minister. She hopes that he will revive the little church that she attends, as well as provide her boarding house with a badly-needed aura of respectability. Jeremiah is gifted and charismatic. But he has a secret, one that will change Maggie, her friends, and her town forever.