Maddie Sykes is a promising seamstress who's just arrived in Bright Leaf, North Carolina--the tobacco capital of the South--where her aunt has a thriving sewing business. Bright Leaf is a prosperous wonderland in full Technicolor bloom, and Maddie is dazzled by the bustle of the crisply uniformed female factory workers and her aunt's glossiest clientele: the wives of the powerful tobacco executives. But she soon learns that Bright Leaf isn't quite the carefree paradise that it seems: a trail of misfortune follows many of the women. Although Maddie is quick to believe that this is a coincidence, she inadvertently uncovers evidence that suggests otherwise. She wants to report what she knows, but in a town where everyone depends on Big Tobacco to survive, Maddie doesn't know where to turn or who she can trust.-- Back cover.