Natchez, 1841. As a slave girl, Jenny has always yearned for freedom, but when her master Cornelius Carson abruptly sets her free and hands her a steamboat ticket to free soil in Ohio, she is completely alone. She knows she faces a future filled with dangers. Then an old acquaintance, Walker Jackson, persuades her to return with him to Carefree, the abandoned Natchez estate of her childhood. Only one person still lives there: Esther, a slave woman. When Cornelius unexpectedly inherits the estate, Jenny finds that her life, like the estate, is taking some unexpected turns. The lives of ...

Natchez, Mississippi. 1843... At the age of 22, Jenny has lived a lifetime of experiences. She was a child kidnapped into slavery, and then freed. She’s been married and widowed, and she’s become a mother. But when an ambitious sheriff comes after her for an old crime, she flees the safety of her home at the Natchez estate known as Carefree and plunges headlong into dangers greater than any she has faced before. At 34, Cornelius Carson is wealthy, an important man in Natchez. He has inherited Carefree, and he lives there with his wife Euphonia, his small son Thomas, and his ward, a ...

Since they were children running barefoot about Toulouse Plantation, Josie and Cleo have been as close as sisters, forging an unbreakable bond that defies their roles as mistress and slave. Together, the two have shared secrets and protected each other through happiness and heartbreak. They never dream they could also share an intense passion for the same man, the elegant, charming, and irresistibly seductive Bertrand Chamard.

Daniel and Lori love each other, yet to live as one in 1856, they must escape from the unyielding society that imprisons them. Lori was born a slave in North Carolina, yet by chance was raised alongside Daniel in a wealthy abolitionist household. The sudden death of Daniel's mother catapults Lori back into bondage. Relegated to chattel on a rice plantation, Lori lives in constant fear under the tormenting scrutiny of Daniel's wretched aunt.

In the South Carolina Hills, along the Savannah River Watershed, in the fall of 1829, 14-year-old, three-quarter Cherokee Sahani, whose Christian name is Charity, sets out on a journey with her 83-year-old white grandfather to Fort Charlotte for what she thinks is a trip to trade the pelts he has accumulated in order to replenish their supplies. However, Charity soon discovers that her grandfather's objective in making this trip is to get her married off and settled somewhere.

In a North Carolina mountain town filled with moonshine and rotten husbands, Sadie Blue is only the latest girl to face a dead-end future at the mercy of a dangerous drunk. She's been married to Roy Tupkin for 15 days, and she knows now that she should have listened to the folks who said he was trouble. But when a stranger sweeps in and knocks the world off-kilter for everyone in town, Sadie begins to think there might be more to life than being Roy's wife.

Abigail Milton was born into the British middle class, but her family has landed in unthinkable debt. To ease their burdens, Abby's parents send her to America to live off the charity of their old friend. When she arrives in Charleston at the age of 17, Abigail discovers that the man her parents raved about is a disagreeable widower who wants little to do with her. Just as she begins to grow comfortable in her new life, she overhears her benefactor planning the escape of a local slave - and suddenly, everything she thought she knew about Douglas Elling is turned on its head.

Eleven-year-old Grace Carter has a talent for hiding things. She's had plenty of practice, burying thoughts and feelings that might anger her strict evangelical pastor father. The Knowing, as Grace calls it, offers glimpses of people's pasts and futures. It enables her to see into the depth of her mother's sadness, and even allows Grace to talk to Isaac, her twin brother who died at birth. To her wise, loving Aunt Pearl, the Knowing is a family gift; to her daddy, it's close to witchcraft.

This is a powerful tale of family, a celebration of decency, and the heartbreak of society’s injustices then that rings true today. ★★★★★ Set in a world where women of the KKK betray their neighbors, where horrors of unscrupulous foundling homes come to light, and buried mysteries are not all that hidden. It's Georgia 1921. Mute since birth, fifteen-year-old Willow Stewart has one task to complete—to leave her Appalachian homestead and find a traveling preacher and her brother, Briar. When a peddler kidnaps her, she escapes only to face an unjust arrest and penal servitude. ...

Although Jessilyn and Gemma’s friendship has weathered the storms of heartache and prejudice, the turbulent summer of 1936 threatens to shatter the ties that bind. After the hit-and-run death of a little girl, Gemma’s explosive revelation could save an innocent man’s life—but not without jeopardizing the livelihood of Jessilyn’s family.

A Charleston belle with slavery on her conscience. A slave with rebellion in her heart. In South Carolina in 1858, no friendship could be more dangerous.

Ya'll, let me tell you my story!Glad you could find your way here, and I welcome you to the Sellers Plantation here in the deep south of Mobile, Alabama. I'm anxious to get started with my story tellin,' so, I'm sharin' a little bout the story that I be tellin' to ya'll down below. When I wuz born, I be given the name Gertrude Ida Rollins, but as I be growin' folks just be callin' me Ms. Gertie. I wuz born in Mobile, Alabama in the year eighteen and eighty-eight. Yes, that be a long time ago for most of ya'll, but I thinks it be good to be learnin' bout the history that be comin' before you...

Deep in the tobacco land of North Carolina, nothing's been the same since the boys shipped off to war and worry took their place. Thirteen-year-old Lucy Brown is precocious and itching for adventure. Then Allie Bert Tucker wanders into town, an outcast with a puzzling past, and Lucy figures the two of them can solve any curious crime they find - just like her hero, Nancy Drew. Their chance comes when a man goes missing, a woman stops speaking, and an eccentric gives the girls a mystery to solve that takes them beyond the ordinary.

Small-town gossip never much bothered Olivia Westerly. As a single career woman, she's weathered her share. It's easy to ignore the raised eyebrows over her late-in-life marriage to Charlie Doyle. But after he drops dead on their honeymoon, the whispers are salt on her raw grief. Especially when an orphaned, 11-year-old-boy shows up on her doorstep, looking for the grandfather he never met. Behind Ethan Allen Doyle's wary blue eyes lie heavily guarded emotions that unexpectedly tug on Olivia's heart, and she finds herself wanting to win his trust.

Eliza Spalding Warren was just a child when she was taken hostage by the Cayuse Indians during a massacre in 1847. Now the young mother of two children, Eliza faces a different kind of dislocation; her impulsive husband wants them to make a new start in another territory, which will mean leaving her beloved home and her departed mother's grave - and returning to the land of her captivity.