Hannah has endured six years of a brutal marriage to a husband who used her barrenness as an excuse for his cruelties. Just when she thinks she can endure no more, Levi falls in the river and drowns, a release too good to be true.
In a nation that guards land rights, under the rule of levirate, or brother-in-law, marriage she must go to another. What she does not know is that her husband's brother Joshua has loved her from afar every day of those six years. Having broken the Tenth Commandment, Joshua cannot believe God is now giving him his heart's desire. Surely there must be some punishment to come.
And there is, but not at God's hand. At Levi's. He just never expected to die before his greatest act of malevolence played out, and Joshua and Hannah are left caught in his scheme.