Katie Lapp's identity had been shattered the moment she found the satin baby dress in the attic of her parents Amish home. Painfully torn from her close-knit community in the frightening ordeal called the shunning, Katie - now Katherine Mayfield - sets out to find the ailing birth mother she has never known. Her journey takes her to the peaceful home of Lydia Miller, where electric lights and telephones sets Katherine's mind whirling with "fancy" things, and on to the elaborate Bennett estate in the Finger Lakes region of New York. There she stumbles into a world of compassion and greed, mercy and betrayal - where the plain garb of the Amish is misused to disguise an evil conspiracy. Unknown to Katherine, her first love, Daniel, is taking appropriate steps to return to his Amish family - and to her. But their worlds may have drifted too far apart to bridge... Shunned from her home and alone in a world of strangers, Katherine Mayfield longs only for the gentle, loving embrace of the woman she hopes to call Mother.