In the summer of 1920, the town of Bayou Rosa, Louisiana is in its twilight, but hope arrives with the construction of a new railroad depot. The brighter future is imperiled when a free-spirited local woman shoots her lover in the back, but won't say why. Now, the town is faced with a legal and moral dilemma. With rows of new graves in the cemetery from a devastating world war and influenza epidemic, can a jury of twelve men vote to hang a woman they’ve seen grow up since birth? Joelle Amais was a willful child, an unwed teenage mother, and now an accused murderess. As the weeks stretch between her arrest and a delayed trial, her defiant silence threatens to blow Bayou Rosa apart. Joelle’s only ally is her daughter Geneva, the town schoolteacher, whose demure demeanor hides the stubbornness she inherited from her mother. Geneva is determined to see her mother get a fair trial, even after Joelle’s enemies turn their ire, violently, toward her.