Carrie Buck, a young woman living in early-twentieth-century Virginia, is raped and becomes pregnant by a family member–and her trauma is only beginning. She is deemed a deviant for having a child out of wedlock and, for that reason, is a candidate for sterilization.

Louisa Van Patten, a New York socialite, is an advocate of the eugenics movement, which promotes this punishment.

When Carrie and Louisa meet, along with journalist Ben Newman, during a national debate about the merits of forced sterilization, all their lives–and ours–are changed forever.

Paula Paul’s historical novel The Mind of a Deviant Woman offers a thrilling story based in extensive research into a little-known, but devastating, part of American history.