"The six members of the Bradley family have always been close. But in the wake of a tragedy that leaves a hole in the very center of their lives, they suddenly find themselves coming apart. Claire, a convert to the Mormon faith, is so shattered by what's happened that she can't even bring herself to get out of bed. Her husband, Ian, however is more secure in his belief that everything happens for a reason. As a bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ...

Enslaved by their own fears, the characters in this riveting collection are straining for redemption. Their choices reflect the well-worn patterns we carve for ourselves through our idiosyncrasies-our dominant traits. A basketball coach teaches moral ambiguity; a divorcee clutches at sanity; a mother struggles with her son's paternity; a childless man regrets his youthful onanism. Through their shared experiences these tangible characters undergo...

Linda Wallheim is the mother of five grown boys and the wife of a Mormon bishop. As bishop, Kurt Wallheim is the ward's designated spiritual father, and that makes Linda the ward's unofficial mother, and her days are filled with comfort visits, community service, and informal counseling. But Linda is increasingly troubled by the church's patriarchal structure and secrecy, especially as a disturbing situation takes shape in the ward. One cold winter...

"The Mormon church may have disavowed the polygamy it became so famous for in the 19th century, but for some Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints, "plural marriage" isn't just ancient history Mormon bishop's wife Linda Wallheim is stunned to learn her son Kenneth has gotten engaged to a young woman from a polygamous family. Naomi Carter may have left the religion she grew up in, but the Carters will still be the Wallheims' in-laws once Kenneth and Naomi...

In Draper, Utah, a tight-knit Mormon community is thrown into upheaval when their ward's second counselor -- one of the bishop's right-hand men -- is found dead in an elaborately staged murder on church property. Carl Ashby was known as a devout Mormon, a pillar of the community, and a loving husband and father. Who would want him dead? Linda Wallheim, the wife of the ward's bishop, can't rest as long as the ward is suffering. She is particularly...

Detective Abish Taylor left Utah for a reason. But with her husband's passing, it's time to come home. Reconnecting with her family means dealing with her past: the father she abandoned and the community she left behind. Her one escape is serving as the sole police detective in the small town of Pleasant View. But when the quiet Mormon suburb in the Wasatch Mountains is shaken by a macabre death-with the hallmarks of a sacred ritual dating back to...

Ellis Kimball, sixteen, whose anxiety disorder causes her to prepare for the imminent end of the world, meets Hannah, who claims to know when it will happen.

1974: Fifteen-year-old Loretta slips out of her bedroom window to meet her "Gentile" boyfriend. This time, however, her strict Mormon parents catch her returning at dawn and quickly arrange for her to marry the upstanding Dean Harder, a devout yet materialistic fundamentalist who already has a wife and a brood of kids, some not much younger than Loretta herself. Trapped in her role as a "sister wife," Loretta dreams of another, better future, of a...

"The fourth installment in Mette Ivie Harrison's nationally bestselling Linda Wallheim mystery series, set in Mormon Utah, explores the effects of alienation, immigration, and extortion from the inner workings of the Mormon church. Now that all five of her sons have left home, Mormon bishop's wife Linda Wallheim has quite a bit of time on her hands, most of which she spends worrying about the state of the country and how her youngest son, Samuel,...

"Sara dreams that she and her sister, Rachel, might escape their abusive father and his four wives, who constantly vie for power in their overcrowded household. Sara wishes to choose her own path in life, to go to school, to get a job, to marry of her own free will. She wants the same for her beloved sister. But that is not Sara's destiny, nor Rachel's. Trapped in a secret, polygamous cult, the fifteen-year-olds are overdue to be married to husbands...