A catastrophic event called The Great Depression hit the world and impacted many, sweeping through households and leaving despair in its wake. Jobs were lost and economic stability became a thing of the past. Spokane, Washington, like countless other cities and towns across America, had no shortage of families and displaced souls in desperate situations.With a husband who is gone for days at a time, Sophie is left trying to care for their growing family on her own. She vows to put food in the mouths of her hungry children, and tirelessly spends entire days walking the city streets searching for employment, only to return home each night defeated and exhausted. She can think of nothing worse than watching her children perish from malnutrition and having to bury them, as the woman next door already had to do. The fear of starvation keeps her up at night, until one day she is forced to do the unthinkable in order to feed her family. And then one tragic day all her children, save for Charlotte, who is still an infant, are ripped away from her.Years pass, and Charlotte is seventeen and in her last year of high school when she meets and falls in love with a young man. The two are wed in a simple ceremony right before Martin is called off to England to help with the Korean War. Charlotte meanwhile is taken in by his parents, and while staying in their house discovers something unsettling about the family she married into. Not long after moving in, she meets her brother in-law, Clarence, who comes to visit with his wife in tow. It's during this first meeting with him, that Charlotte suspects that her brother-in-law's intentions toward her are less than pure.She's relieved when Martin finally sends for her to come and stay with him in England for a short while, but the trip isn't the restful respite she hoped it would be, and she soon finds herself unwittingly at the center of a mystery. Once back in the States, it's not long before Martin is discharged, and the two are reunited. Basking in the stable environment and security she never had growing up, Charlotte couldn't be happier, and easily settles into being a wife and mother. But her contented bliss is not to last, when Martin comes home one day from the machine shop where he works and announces his plans for a career change, starting up his own small timber felling business.The two of them share an enduring love that spans many years, from young lovers, to newlyweds, to raising a family in Spokane, then making the move to the Olympic Peninsula in their later years, where they settle into the small logging community of Humptulips. Despite the poverty and hardships endured during her childhood, nothing can prepare Charlotte for what's to come. Ultimately she and Martin are destined to a place where the wild roses grow.