From bestselling author Emerson Ford comes an unforgettable true story of a woman who refuses to be tamed, set against the sweeping backdrop of the American Revolution. Perfect for readers of Where the Crawdads Sing, The Four Winds, and A Girl Called Samson.

Virginia, 1749. In the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Rosanna Waters is everything a proper lady shouldn’t be—barefoot in the forest, gripping tree roots on the muddy riverbank. She should be home helping with the wash. Instead, she’s defying her mother one time too many. The day Mama rides out to fetch her wayward daughter, her horse slips on a cliff edge and Rosanna learns that some wildness comes with a price too terrible to pay.

Now with her mother crippled and her family depending on her, Rosanna must abandon her wayward spirit. Then Callum Stewart arrives, a Scottish boy with hair like autumn fire. In him, Rosanna recognizes something that calls to the part of herself she’s trying so hard to bury, until war tears them apart.

As revolution engulfs the colonies, Rosanna has carved out a life in the unforgiving backcountry—eight children, a working farm, and a hard-won independence. But when the war arrives at her doorstep, threatening everything she's built and everyone she loves, Rosanna must decide how far she's willing to go to protect her family and—come face to face with the boy who stole her heart years ago.

From Emerson Ford comes an epic tale of a woman who refused to surrender—not to grief, not to the wilderness, and never to anyone who tried to break her spirit.