"David said to Abigail . . . 'Blessed be your good sense, and blessed be you . . . '" Samuel 25:32-33 Abigail of Carmel hopes against hope that someday she'll marry and have children—but her family needs her at home, for they're in dire straits. So dire, in fact, that when her brother cannot pay the pitiless Maon Nabal his gambling debts, Abigail knows she must forgo her dream—and, to settle the debt, convinces her boorish lord to marry her. She has vowed to be a devoted wife—a hard promise to keep when Nabal the Fool exiles her to the countryside to herd his sheep. But Abigail begins to love the weathered prairie and its people—particularly David, the warrior son of Jesse, who has taken her under his wing. But when David and Nabal come face-to-face in senseless war, Abigail sees that the tentative peace she's worked for could crumble—like the very soil beneath her feet.