Publisher's Synopsis
Inspired by a true story ...
When Josephine Bell discovers how quickly one can descend from middle-class Victorian comfort to the slums of Liverpool, she makes a fateful decision.
Seeking escape from desperate poverty, the girl joins a community of kindly strangers and embarks on an epic journey across a treacherous ocean and into the North American wilderness, pulling a two-wheeled handcart over the Rocky Mountains to a remote desert kingdom.
In her new home, a Mormon settlement in the Utah Territory, Josephine is pressed into a polygamous marriage with an older man. She struggles to find her own path amidst a backdrop of rising violence and haunting tragedy.
The Gates of Eden explores the timeless mysteries of faith and doubt, fear and love through the eyes of a girl on the cusp of adulthood.
