Seamstress Maddie Sykes arrives in Bright Leaf, North Carolina—the tobacco capital of the South—and she is dazzled by the bustle of the crisply uniformed female factory workers and the wives of the executives. Learning that many of the women have serious health problems, Maddie also uncovers the cause. Maddie wants to report what she knows, but in a town where everyone depends on Big Tobacco to survive, she doesn't know who to trust—and fears that the truth may hurt the women whom she has befriended.