The Cost of Sin - Borne by the innocent

A piercing historical coming-of-age novel that exposes how silence, faith, and family shape a young girl’s understanding of truth. The Cost of Sin delivers the emotional force of a classic American saga with a sharp, modern eye.

A family torn apart by faith. A child's fierce love that refuses to break.

In 1905 Utah, five-year-old Myrtle's world shatters when her grandfather, a stern Mormon bishop, declares her parents' marriage sinful—because it wasn't sealed in the temple. When violence erupts and tragedy strikes, Myrtle and her siblings are scattered across a unforgiving landscape of rigid doctrine and desperate survival.

Decades later, Luke arrives in Salt Lake City to meet his fiancée Sally's grandmother, Myrt, whose stories reveal a childhood marked by loss, resilience, and quiet rebellion. Through Myrt's unflinching memories—of a father's fatal shame, a mother's mysterious death, and the siblings torn from her arms—Luke discovers a family legacy built on sacrifice and the devastating price of living outside the lines of faith.

The Cost of Sin is a biographical historical saga of love tested by doctrine, innocence confronting cruelty, and the enduring power of storytelling to heal the deepest wounds.