Gooseberries Have Thorns chronicles everyday experiences, relationships, and major events in the lives of Maggie's ancestors in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The narrative focuses primarily on Maggie and how she navigates various circumstances in racialized Nova Scotia in the early twentieth century. Maggie (Margaret Jane) Elms, born in 1894, is a descendant of Loyalists of African descent who arrived in Nova Scotia in 1783.

Prior to her first marriage, Maggie becomes a domestic worker to financially support her mother and siblings. Although shaken by the untimely deaths of her father, a favorite sister, and youngest brother, Maggie remains focused on her goals.

She avoids contracting tuberculosis, then is hospitalized with typhoid fever. Several years later, Maggie learns firsthand how difficult it is to be the wife of a coal miner. She also copes with the unexplained death of a daughter, the outcome of a sexual assault in the mining village where they live.

Maggie knows what she wants and devises plans to achieve her main goal; regardless, of card carrying KKK members.