What does it take to live a pious life? For the sober, devout, naive young Edith it meant foregoing the love of her life ... and she entered into an unhappy and disastrous marriage to a dashing, narcissistic reprobate whom her pastor considered a worthily righteous mate. Her only compensation for her miserable situation were her two children who worshiped her.

For her timid young daughter, Amber, it meant foregoing a comforting married life for a celibate pastoral life in the community of her mother's reportedly enlightened and judicious childhood pastor. But Amber kept a diary, and when her Pandora's diary was abruptly opened one day, no one but she and Edith found freedom from the evils hidden beneath the pastoral exhibition of piety.