At fourteen, Lily lives on a peach farm in South Carolina with her harsh, unyielding father She has shaped her life around one devastating, blurred memory of the afternoon she accidentally killed her mother Since then her only companion has been the fierce-hearted black woman Rosaleen When Rosaleen insults the three biggest racists in town, Lily flees with her on a journey to Tiburon, South Carolina, where they are taken in by three black, bee-keeping sisters