Anna Frith is a young women mother of two young boys who is caught in a dire time of plague and death. Her small village in rural England during the 1500th century. She lives a normal life as a widower after her husband Sam Frith died in a mining accident. In her beautiful village a stranger named George Viccars, a tailor, comes to town and stays with Anna for a while and they start to gain feelings for each other. But unfortunately George is the first person to get the plague. This starts a long chain of plague victims and deaths. The rector of the town, Micheal Mompellion and his wife Elinor Mompellion try to keep the town together and out of chaos. The villigers decide that they will do the courageos thing and isolate themselves in their village. Elinor decides to start taking Anna under her arm and becomes a sort of mother and teacher to Anna. After many deaths Anna's Step mother, Aphra, goes insane and kills her daughter and turns into a witch like creature. In her insane state Aphra kills Elinor. Michael Mompellion is in utter shock and goes into deep depression. But one the rector comes out of his depression because of Anna, and they have an affair together. This ends sourly when Anna finds out that Elinor and Michael never had a proper honeymoon. This makes Anna breakup with Michael and she goes to help the richest family in the village, Bradfords. Elizabeth Bradford is the daughter who is a stuck up brat except around her mother, who was pregnant with a bastard. show more Elizabeth asks Anna to help with her mother who is in deep labor and has lost a lot of blood. Anna does deliver a beautiful baby girl. But Elizabeth tries to drown her baby sister, but Anna saves the baby and swears to Elizabeth to take the baby far away forever and never tell anyone about it. Anna travels to the Arabs and raises her new daughter Aisha, which means "life" in Arabic. She also becomes the wife of a famous Arabic doctor. At the end of the book we find out that Anna was pregnant with a baby named Elinor who was fathered by Michael Mompellion. show less