Elle Burns is a former slave with a passion for justice and an eidetic memory. Trading in her life of freedom in Massachusetts, she returns to the indignity of slavery in the South - to spy for the Union Army. Malcolm McCall is a detective for Pinkerton's Secret Service. Subterfuge is his calling, but he's facing his deadliest mission yet - risking his life to infiltrate a Rebel enclave in Virginia.

Elijah Sutton is no fool, despite his love of a country that enslaves people like him. When he's offered land, livestock, and - most importantly - his freedom if he fights in his Patriot owner's stead, Elijah believes he'll soon have everything he ever wanted...and then he meets Kate. The Crown has promised freedom to slaves who escape their Patriot masters and join the British side, and Kate intends to take them up on it. She's eager to leave America - and the painful memories it holds for her - far behind...and then she meets Elijah.

Between grad school and multiple jobs, Naledi Smith doesn't have time for fairy tales . . . or the patience for constant emails claiming she's betrothed to an African prince. Sure. Right. Delete! As a former foster kid, she's learned that the only things she can depend on are herself and the scientific method, and a silly email won't convince her otherwise. Prince Thabiso is the sole heir to the throne of Thesolo, shouldering the hopes of his parents and his people. At the top of their list? His marriage. Ever dutiful, he tracks down his missing betrothed.

Though her Lexus may be broken down on the California freeway, Jessi Teresa Blake is no damsel in distress. Rich, smart, and beautiful, JT, or "Lady Blake," as she is called, is one of the toughest sports agents around. She's negotiated megabucks contracts for every superstar in the business, and only the most confident of men can match wits with her. Men like Reese Anthony, the impossibly sexy trucker who gives her a lift back to Oakland. But Reese isn't just a truck driver—he's a partner in his family's multi-million-dollar company, a lawyer, and a former cop.

When Shanti Mohapi weds the king of Njaza, her dream of becoming a queen finally comes true. But it’s nothing like she imagined. Shanti and her husband may share an immediate and powerful attraction, but her subjects see her as an outsider, and everything she was taught about being the perfect wife goes disastrously wrong. A king must rule with an iron fist, and newly crowned King Sanyu was born perfectly fitted for the gauntlet, even if he wishes he weren’t. He agrees to take a wife as is required of him, though he doesn’t expect to actually fall in love.

Valinda Lacey’s mission in the steamy heart of New Orleans is to help the newly emancipated community survive and flourish. But soon, she discovers that here, freedom can also mean danger. When thugs destroy the school she has set up and then target her, Valinda runs for her life - and straight into the arms of Captain Drake LeVeq.

The beautiful daughter of a prominent Michigan doctor, Narice has never strayed anywhere near the wrong side of the law. Then her father is brutally murdered - and suddenly federal agents are swarming around her like flies, making accusations about a stolen North African diamond. But before they can interrogate her, she is wrested from their grasp at gunpoint by a shadowy figure - and Narice Jordan is on the run.

The last thing Lacy Green needs is trouble - and handsome Mayor Drake Randolph has "danger" written all over him...especially when "His Fineness" accidentally runs her off the road. Despite Drake's sensuous charm, irresistible magnetism, and unwavering determination to make amends, she's thinking it might be smart to play it safe and keep her distance...if only his lips weren't so inviting.

Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Delores Brown has lived a relatively sheltered life. Shielded by her mother’s position as the estate’s medicine woman and cherished by the Master’s sister, she is set apart from the others on the plantation, belonging to neither world. She’d been promised freedom on her eighteenth birthday, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with her true love, Essex Henry, Pheby is forced to leave the only home she has ever known. She unexpectedly finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil’s Half Acre.

Sarita Grayson is desperate. That's the only explanation for her late-night rendezvous with a bag of stolen diamonds. But then a handsome stranger stands between her and a clean getaway. In the struggle for freedom, she accidentally shoots him. Mykal Chandler, head of a covert government agency NIA, can't believe he's been shot. He's shocked, he's furious, but he's also attracted to this sassy woman. Unfortunately, Sarita has stumbled onto a smuggling plot and he'll need to protect her, even if he has to kidnap her to do it. But Sarita isn't one to go quietly into the night....

Teresa July has led a hard life, but now she has a chance to put her train-robbing past behind her. Armed with a new job as a cook to one of Philadelphia's elite families, Teresa is determined to start her life anew, and nothing - not even her boss' stuck-up (and far too handsome) son - is going to stand in her way. Madison Nance is sick of his mother taking in women from the wrong side of the tracks, just to see them turn on her generosity. That's why it's up to him to keep a close eye on Teresa's every move.

Desperate to escape an arranged marriage, Olivia Sterling flees Chicago and heads west. She dreams of setting up her own seamstress shop in Henry Adams, a small all-Black town in Kansas. But her plans are derailed when her train is robbed by Neil July and his notorious band of outlaws.

Dominic LeVeq, the most notorious privateer ever to command the high seas, has just captured a coveted prize: a British frigate. On a dangerous mission against the Crown, Dominic should be thinking only of his ship's safety. But the rebel captain is utterly entranced by Clare Sullivan, the stunning slave on board. Consumed by desire, desperate to have her, Dominic offers Clare her freedom in exchange for a forbidden night in his bed - a night he assures her will be most pleasurable indeed.

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, Southern Black community and running away at age 16, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: Their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her Black daughter in the same Southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for White, and her White husband knows nothing of her past.

In August 1831, Nat Turner leads a group of escaped slaves in a rebellion that rocks the South. The revolt comes to a quick and violent end. In November, Nat is publicly hanged, and as his body swings, a false sense of peace washes over Jerusalem, Virginia. Unbeknownst to the world, on the day Nat Turner dies, his son, Nat Hope Turner, is born. Reared by Big Mama on the Turner plantation, young Nat's identity is kept secret to keep him safe. As Nat grows to manhood, he leads his own uprising against slavery and is forever after known as Black.