Written by Donna Everhart, Women of a Promiscuous Nature (2026) is set in North Carolina and follows three women of varying ages: Dorothy Baker, the superintendent of a women’s reform institution; Stella Temple, a 15-year-old girl who is sent to this facility after being raped and impregnated by her father; and Ruth Foster, a 24-year-old woman who is forced into the facility after allegedly testing positive for syphilis during an involuntary medical exam. 

Born and raised in North Carolina, Donna Everhart is a USA Today bestselling author who is known for writing the historical fiction novels When the Jessamine Grows and The Saints of Swallow Hill. Her seventh novel, Women of a Promiscuous Nature, was named a January 2026 Library Reads Top Ten Pick and an Indie Next Pick in February 2026. The novel highlights State Power as a Tool of Misogynistic Oppression, The Patriarchal Construction of “Good” and “Bad” Femininity, Female Solidarity as a Form of Rebellion, and Weaponizing Respectability to Persecute Poor and Unmarried Women.

This guide is based on the 2026 Kensington Publishing Corporation paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of gender discrimination, sexual violence, rape, ableism, mental illness, disordered eating, child sexual abuse, pregnancy termination, suicidal ideation and self-harm, cursing, illness and death, and physical and emotional abuse. The source text also employs disparaging or outdated terminology in relation to sex work.

Plot Summary

In Eagle Springs, North Carolina, in 1931, Dorothy Baker, the superintendent of a women’s reform facility called Samarcand Manor, finds arson materials stashed in a broom closet and questions the residents, whose ages range from 10 to 16. No one admits responsibility, but that night, a fire breaks out. Ultimately, 12 girls take responsibility, and the sheriff arrests them. Baker is fired, and the newspapers criticize the girls’ “abysmal” treatment at the reform facility. Disgraced, Baker goes home. Five years later, a friend tells her that the State Industrial Farm Colony for Women is hiring.

The narrative shifts forward to 10 years after the fire at Samarcand and introduces a 15-year-old girl named Stella Temple, who is living with her parents, Alice and Cordell. Alice has been in poor health, and Cordell started raping Stella three years ago. When Stella gets pregnant, Alice takes her to the doctor, who insists that her virtue must be “restored.” Stella’s parents allow him to send her to a women’s reform facility called Farm Colony, where Stella is made to undergo an abortion. During the procedure, another doctor sterilizes her without her knowledge. After a week of bed rest, she gets a brown uniform and meets Baker, the superintendent, and Mrs. Maynard, her housemother. Stella is excited by the opportunity to make a fresh start in life; she never wants to return to her parents’ home.

The narrative shifts to 24-year-old Ruth Foster, who is walking to work when Sheriff Wright accosts her and tells her that he has to get her “checked out” to make sure she has no venereal diseases that might infect men. At Dr. Marvin Tyndall’s office, she receives a rough pelvic exam. Although Ruth has never had sex, the doctor tells her that she has syphilis. He states that in order to protect servicemen from possible infection, he must send her to a facility for treatment. The sheriff drives her to the Colony, where she meets Baker. Insisting that she doesn’t need reform, Ruth tries to escape. When the sheriff brings her back, he threatens her with jail if she runs again. 

Baker leads Ruth to a basement room and confines her there for eight days, telling her to use this time for reflection. The food nauseates her, but on the eighth morning, it dramatically improves. When Baker returns, Ruth agrees to everything she says. Baker tells her about the “American Plan” to protect servicemen from sexually promiscuous women. Ruth is sent into quarantine for a week, and Dr. Graham gives her two injections to treat her supposed infection. Ruth says she has never done anything to catch syphilis, and when she asks if there are similar reform facilities for infected men, Nurse Crawford says no. 

Baker harbors a grudge against independent women like Ruth. In her private reflections, Baker considers the extensive scarring she bears from a fire that occurred in her youth, then recalls her husband losing interest in her when he saw her scars. Later, she caught him having sex with another woman. Now, Baker asks Stella to pay attention to the women who break the rules and report back to her.

Ruth loses weight, struggling with nausea after the shots. She is released from quarantine and meets others with stories like hers. Stella works in the laundry and collects information for Baker. About a week after Stella’s arrival, Maynard, the sadistic “house mother” and disciplinarian, reads aloud the names of the women with enough demerits for group punishment, and Ruth is appalled to realize that they’ll be beaten. Lucy Griffith, a resident who was formerly a sex worker, says that Maynard enjoys beating the women; she also warns Ruth that Stella listens to conversations and reports back to Baker. 

At breakfast, a resident named Frances, who is reputed to have mental health challenges, attacks Maynard. After Baker breaks it up, Frances winks at Stella, who decides that Frances is more lucid than others believe. Stella feels a pain in her abdomen; at lunch, she vomits profusely, and she later passes out in the laundry. Baker is aware of the rumors that Maynard enjoys the beatings, but she keeps this information to herself. When she sees that Stella is ill, she calls the nurse.

The next morning, Ruth is assigned to cooking duties. Meanwhile, Dr. Graham drains the infection-induced fluid buildup in Stella’s abdomen and tells the nurse to start her on medication. After several days, the doctors force-feed her. When Baker learns of this, she is appalled and confronts Dr. Graham, who dismisses her concerns and insists that the board will support his decision. When Baker confronts Maynard for her complicity, the woman merely mentions her friendship with Dr. Woodall, the chairman of the board.

Baker asks Ruth to write a letter that describes how the Colony is helping her to turn her life around, implying that disobedience will result in Ruth’s return to the solitary confinement of “meditation.” When Stella returns to work, she realizes that she hasn’t had a period for many months, and she does not understand Baker’s roundabout explanation. Baker assigns Stella to work with Frances.

When Lucy escapes, Baker questions Ruth and places her in quarantine until her test results are in. (Before escaping, Lucy promised Ruth that she would send a man she knows to investigate the Colony.) Stella works to help Frances learn to write the alphabet, but Maynard refuses to believe Stella when the girl reports that Frances actually managed to write. Maynard accuses Stella of lying, but Stella insists that Frances did the work. Baker decides that Maynard is right and that Stella has lied. The next morning, Ruth is assigned to work outside, and she sees a strange man by the tool shed. He’s Lucy’s friend, a lawyer named Stanley Newell. He says he wants to talk to her and asks to meet her here at 11:30 tomorrow. Ruth says she’ll try.

Baker tries to convince Stella to change her story about Frances, and when Stella refuses, Baker realizes that she can order Maynard to punish Stella and thereby reveal the house mother’s brutality for all to see. Baker and Maynard decide that all the women should witness the punishment as a scare tactic. Ruth refuses to participate. Baker watches the proceedings from an adjoining classroom and is shocked by the housemother’s “uncanny zeal” and guttural moans as she beats Stella. Ruth yells at Maynard to stop, and Baker forces Ruth back into “meditation.” Days later, Baker tests Ruth’s obedience by tasking her with beating Frances for stealing food, and Ruth refuses. Frances is sent to a mental hospital. By the end of her third week in meditation, a weakened Ruth can’t stop shaking, and Baker sends her to quarantine.

When Ruth returns, she tells the women what happened to Frances. Meanwhile, Stella longs to regain Baker’s approval. Baker requests a meeting with Woodall, but he invites Maynard to join them. Baker outlines Maynard’s misbehavior, and Woodall says he’ll take the issue to the board, revealing that he has received complaints about Baker as well. Woodall orders her to reinstate Maynard and says he’ll notify them of the board’s decision. When Baker reaches her office, she finds a letter indicating that Frances will be returned to the Colony tomorrow.

Maynard sends Ruth back to the kitchen and puts Stella on bathroom duty. Frances has returned, though she seems unsteady. After 10 days, Newell finally reappears to meet with Ruth and is shocked by her weakened state. When Stella asks about her period, Baker tells her that the doctor has prevented Stella from ever having children. Stella decides to let the past go.

Woodard arrives, and he says that Baker will be on probation for three months. Maynard is to be promoted to be the assistant superintendent. Meanwhile, Newell tells Ruth about similar government facilities that date back to World War I and are designed to protect servicemen from contracting sexually transmitted diseases from “promiscuous” women. Ruth realizes the futility of fighting this system. 

One day, Baker gives Stella a new dress and takes her to Kinston. They run errands and go to a soda fountain, where Baker refers to Stella as her niece. Baker tells Stella about the fire at Samarcand and warns her that if Maynard gains control of the Colony, Stella will be sent home.

Stella tells Frances about the Samarcand fire. That night, Frances sneaks out of the dorm, and the next morning, the building catches fire. Baker rushes toward the flames and remembers an incident that occurred when she was seven. When she was a child, her parents always told her to not to play with matches, but she loved striking them, and being disobedient was exciting. Sitting behind the lace curtain, she got distracted and dropped a lit match. The curtain caught fire, then her stockings and dress. She ran outside, and her mother put out the fire on Baker’s clothing out while the house burned. 

Now, Baker sees Frances holding a gas can just before the girl disappear. Baker calls Woodall, and they begin to discharge all the women. An old friend tells Baker about a job opening in Alabama, and Baker asks if she can bring her “niece” (Stella). The next morning, Baker and Stella board the train. Ruth is discharged and goes home with her mother after nearly seven months.

Newell finds legal precedents indicating that a lawsuit against those who ran the Colony would be unsuccessful. Ruth is certain that she did nothing wrong, and she decides to move on. One day, Ruth sees a news headline touting Baker as the “heroine” of the Colony. She is irate, so she writes her own version and sends it in to the newspaper, leaving nothing out.