I'd give this 2.5 stars.
I had so much hope for this and it didn't live up to my expectations. I had a feeling throughout that there was bad postpartum issues with Samuel's mother.....I just couldn't pinpoint if she was truly dead by Ruth, the housekeeper's, hand or not until close to the end. I really didn't like the way Ruth treated Samuel, being abusive. The ending was very unsatisfactory to me.