"FASCINATING . . . A  memorable central character and a noteworthy debut ." --Gail Godwin Mavis Schmidt Holmstead has always been the strong one. The oldest of six sisters who grew up on a North Dakota farm, Mavis has spent a lifetime comforting and cooking, mending and managing. Now a man is dead, and the confessed murderer is Mavis--widow, mother, grandmother, matriarch. Soon her sisters gather together, not only to support Mavis, but to discover the truth. She must be lying about the murder, but why? To answer that question, buried secrets are exposed, revealing shocking truths that are both harrowing and redemptive. . . . "ENGAGING . . . REFRESHING . . . Marshall has a down-home sensibility enlivened by a wicked wit." --Chicago Tribune "Resonates with echoes of Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres." --Kirkus Reviews