Virtuous Women

Sometimes being virtuous isn't enough. Raised and homeschooled in her family's home, isolated from the world except for their insular church community, Hope Wagner has little exposure to people and environments outside of her father's beliefs. That all changes when her father marries the worldly newcomer to their church. Jennifer Levine has always wanted a large, close-knit family that lives according to traditional family values, just like in her beloved historical novels. But after her marriage to Michael, a handsome widower at her new church, Jennifer's life becomes a nightmare of inadequacy and futility as she tries to embody her husband's idea of a virtuous woman. Michael will stop at nothing to ensure his wife and daughters fulfill their God-given roles as helpmeets and mothers, and does everything in his power to eliminate the dangerous ideas his new wife has introduced into his family. When Jennifer finally rejects Michael's authority over her, she launches the family into a crisis. Now, to escape the future her father has planned for her, Hope must find the courage to leave the only world she's ever known and pursue a life she's never been given the tools to manage. This emotional and eye-opening book shows the reality of Christian patriarchy, and the terrible price paid by women who have no choice but to be virtuous.