Silken Strands

One man's utopia is a young woman's worst nightmare.

For seventeen-year-old Millie Langston, one hundred husbands are ninety-nine too many. But since she lives at Oneida Community in 1877, when she marries, all the men of the commune will be her husbands, and she'll be just one of many wives to them. Perhaps because she's read so many novels, she dreams of romance with just one man—someone like the handsome Outsider she met on the train.

But that's not Millie's only dream. At the commune, she has the chance to work full time as a writer—something unheard of in the outside world. Unexpectedly, she becomes a rising star, thanks to her mentor, Tirzah Miller, editress of the Community newspaper. Tirzah expects Millie to submit to marriage as all the other girls have, so she arranges for Millie to meet with their new leader, Theodore Noyes, for her initiation as a communal wife. Now Millie must decide what she values most. How important is it to belong? Is it worth her freedom? Arranged marriages are bad enough, but Millie faces a string of unwanted husbands after Theodore, including the aging prophet, Father Noyes, and the sinister, eye-patched Judge Towner. How can she avoid the inevitable without being expelled from the only home she's ever known?