In turn-of-the-twentieth-century Texas, the Berachah Home for the Redemption of Erring Girls is an unprecedented beacon of hope for young women consigned to the dangerous poverty of the streets by birth, circumstance, or personal tragedy. Built in 1903 on the dusty outskirts of Arlington, a remote dot between the red-light districts of Dallas and Fort Worth, the progressive home bucks public opinion by offering faith, training, and rehabilitation to prostitutes, addicts, unwed mothers, and "ruined" girls without forcibly separating mothers from children. When Lizzie Bates and Mattie McBride meet there-- one sick and abused, but desperately clinging to her young daughter, the other jilted by the beau who fathered her ailing son-- they form a friendship that will see them through unbearable loss, heartbreak, difficult choices, and ultimately, diverging paths. A century later, Cate Sutton, a reclusive university librarian, uncovers the hidden histories of the two troubled women when she stumbles upon the cemetery on Berachah's former grounds. She begins to comb through the home's archives in university's library. Pulled by an indescribable connection, Cate confronts her own heartbreaking past, and to reclaim the life she thought she had forever let go of.