"Diamonds aren't always a girls best friend. Pregnant out of wedlock, sixteen-year-old Annie Moore is sent to live at a convent for fallen women. When the nuns take her baby, Annie escapes, determined to find a way to be reunited with her daughter. But few rights or opportunities are available to a woman in the 1860s, and after failing to find a respectable job, she resorts to prostitution in order to survive. As a highly sought-after demi-mondaine, Annie--now Bessie--garners many expensive gifts from her admirers and eventually meets and marries the son of a wealthy jeweler, a traveling salesman with a gambling problem. With her marriage, she believes her dream of returning to proper society ahs finally come true. She's proven wrong when she suffers the ultimate betrayal at the hands of the man she thought her salvation. But Bessie doesn't let her story end there. Inspired by a true story and set against the backdrop of the burgeoning women's rights movement, The Lives of Diamond Bessie is a haunting tale of betrayal and redemption that explores whether seeking revenge is worth the price you might pay." --page [4] of cover