The Branch Summary

The Beet Queen is a critically acclaimed novel that follows the lives of Mary and Karl Adare after their mother abandons them at a fair to benefit orphaned children. After this shocking abandonment, Mary settles in the small North Dakota town of Argus with relatives while Karl chooses a more transient lifestyle. Their lives will intersect at various points, weaving events that will conspire once again to make them a family. It is a novel of inspiration, of love, and of forgiveness that will warm the heart of everyone who reads it.

Two children jump from a train's boxcar in the small town of Argus, North Dakota. The boy is fourteen and his sister is eleven. They are looking for a small butcher shop their mother's sister runs with her husband somewhere on the east side of town. They walk slowly...