Weeks after giving birth to her son, Miranda McGuire is shipped off to the nation's largest female prison complex to begin a ten-year sentence. Still suffering from the crippling effects of postpartum depression, she must acclimate to this harsh new world-a world with its own rules, its own language, its own power structure. Here she will learn that her high IQ is about as useful as her politics, and that the line between friend and enemy can be as blurred as a watery strip in a plastic spoon. Outside the perimeter fence, a global pandemic rages on. Inside, far more pressing threats abound. As the postpartum fog slowly lifts, the dire nature of her circumstances becomes increasingly clear-trapped, hundreds of miles from home, with her baby left to the care of strangers. She must make it back. But standing in her way are endless coils of razor wire, armed guards, hostile inmates, an indifferent judicial system, and quite possibly her greatest obstacle . . . herself.