The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne

On a fine summer morning in seventeenth-century Massachusetts, Hester Prynne standsin the dock accused of committing adultery. Sentenced to wear a scarlet A on her breast for the remainder of her life, Hester is unable to escape the stigma of her sin - even as her lover hypocritically denounces her in front of the village. And when her long-absent husband, Roger, takes up residence in the colony under an assumed name, Hester must prevent him from learning her lover's identity.