Abortion is once again illegal in America, in-vitro fertilization is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo. In this "powerful and timely" novel (Booklist), five women in an Oregon fishing town navigate these new barriers alongside age-old questions surrounding motherhood, identity, and freedom. Ro, a single high-school teacher, is trying to have a baby on her own, while also writing a biography of a 19th-century female polar explorer. A mother of two, Susan is trapped in a failing marriage; Mattie is one of Ro's best students, who finds herself pregnant with nowhere to turn; and Gin is the forest-dwelling herbalist who brings all their fates together when she's put on trial in a modern-day witch hunt.