Maggie is a twenty-three-year-old wife and mother in the 1700s. She lives with her family in the wilderness of what is now southern Ohio, where the summers are beautiful but the winters hard. As she and her family prepare for an incoming cold season, tragedy strikes on the river. She loses her husband and child and is suddenly alone and without enough food. No one will be coming to her aid, because no one knows where she lives. It is up to Maggie to find ways to catch food and keep warm. She also must find a way to fight her own crushing grief over the loss of her loved ones, which she can only do with the help of God. Through her first winter, her faith sustains her as no feast or fire possibly could. She eventually is found by a Shawnee hunting party, who take her to see a French trader at their nearby village. Even as Maggie makes new friends, she has made up her mind never to marry again or have another child. She is happy to keep on living her lonely life, dedicated to the Lord. But the Lord has other plans-not to bring her down but to lift her up.