A spellbinding novel of sin and salvation, adultery and revenge in a small Mississippi town...Once Leona Sayres was a good Southern woman married to the town preacher. But from the day Averill buried her newborn baby girl, Leona has seethed in unspeakable loneliness and rage.She knows there is only one way to ease her pain. Leona must murder that sensuous man of God, her husband, Averill Sayres.Suddenly Leona has done the unthinkable. And from out of the silent woods around her parsonage, from the dusty Mississippi hills, come the cries and whispers of her past, of the circumstances that brought her to this time and place: a murderer waiting for justice to arrive.Reliving a life gone terribly wrong, Leona cannot see that she is only one part of a far more complex drama. For all his lies and secrets, Averill Sayres had secrets beyond her guessing. And for all her talk of loyalty, Leonas own best friend has played a role in Leonas fate.Now Leona cannot stop what she herself has set in motion: a chain of events that will unmask an astounding secret, and change a town and its people forever.From the Paperback edition.