Becky Thatcher wants to set the record straight. She was never the weeping ninny Mark Twain made her out to be in his famous novel. She knew Samuel Clemensbefore hewas Mark Twain, when he was a wide-eyed dreamer who never could get his facts straight. Yes, she was Toms childhood sweetheart, but the true storyof their love, and the dark secret that tore it apart,never made it into Twains novel.
Now married to Toms cousin Sid Hopkins, Becky has children of her own to protect while the men of Missouri are off fighting their un-Civil War. But when tragedy strikes at home, Becky embarks on a phenomenal quest to find her husband and save her family---a life journey that takes her fromthe Mississippi Rivers steamboats toOzark rebel camps, from Nevadas silver mines to the gilded streets of San Francisco.
Time and again, stubborn but levelheaded Becky must reconcile her independent spirit and thirst for adventure with the eras narrow notions of marriage and motherhood. As she seeksto find a compromise between fulfillment and security, she also grapples with ghosts of her past. Can she forgive herself, or be forgiven, for the lies shes told to the men shes loved? Will she ever forget the maddening, sweet-talking, irresponsible Tom Sawyer, the boy whostole her heart as a little girl? And when she is old, and Huck and Tom and Twain only memories, whose shadow will still lie beside her?
