'Terry is a literary artist of the best sort: keen to render the world whole and crosswise. '-Lee K.Abbott, All Things, All At Once

When seventeen-year-old Abigail Walker, desperate to escape her family and her tedious factory job in the East, responds to the ad, "Man in Territory seeks correspondence with adventurous gal," she thinks she's found her ticket to love and freedom. She falls in love with Henry through the romantic letters he sends and agrees to travel to Shakespeare to become his wife. Instead she finds herself lured to a rough mining town and twice-deceived. First, she is the sole woman ever to set foot in Shakespeare. Secondly, her betrothed is not the poetic Romeo of the love letters, but Henry, an elderly saloon keeper and former outlaw. Just as disappointing, the comfortable mattress which was the one thing she had asked of Henry has been stolen on the road to Shakespeare and the boys who were transporting it killed by Indians. Nothing turns out as you expect in this unusual and quirky novel - from the spirited Abigail's solutions to her problems to the appearance of Shakespeare himself in dramatic form.