This is a story of a Charleston family and the courage, love, and passion that bind them to each other and their vibrant South Carolina city. Follow this extraordinary family from the final years of the Civil War through Reconstruction to the beginnings of the ragtime era. At the story's center is Elizabeth Tradd, who as a child witnesses the horror of war, as a young girl learns the worst that men can do, and as a woman discovers the breathtaking passion that comes to but a lucky few.

When 16-year-old Mary MacAlistair receives a mysterious box from the mother she never knew, she finds a name and address carved beneath the lid—the only clues to her real identity. Her search for her past leads her to New Orleans...and brings her far more than she expected, from the seamy underside of the city to the seductive powers of Valmont Saint-Brévin.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, Margaret Mitchell's great novel of the South is one of the most popular books ever written. Within six months of its publication in 1936, Gone With the Wind had sold a million copies. To date, it has been translated into 25 languages, and more than 28 million copies have been sold. Here are the characters that have become symbols of passion and desire....

From 1783, when German immigrant John Jacob Astor first arrived in the United States, until 2009, when Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, was convicted of defrauding his elderly mother, the Astor name occupied a unique place in American society. The family fortune, first made by a beaver trapping business that grew into an empire, was then amplified by holdings in Manhattan real estate. Over the ensuing generations, Astors ruled Gilded Age New York society and inserted themselves into political and cultural life, but also suffered the most famous loss on the Titanic.

It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages. England is facing attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Those in power bend justice according to their will, regardless of ordinary people and often in conflict with the king. Without a clear rule of law, chaos reigns. In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined.