Plantation Trilogy

For his service in the king's army during the French and Indian War, Judith Sheramy's father, a Puritan New Englander, is granted a parcel of land in far-off Louisiana. As the family ventures down the Mississippi to make a new home in the wilderness, Judith meets Philip Larne, an adventurer who travels in the finest clothes Judith has ever seen. He is a rogue, a killer, and a thief - and the first thing he steals is Judith's heart. Three thousand acres of untamed jungle, populated by native tribes and overrun with jaguars and pirates, await Philip in Louisiana. He and Judith will struggle through their stormy marriage and the challenges of the American Revolution as they strive to build an empire for future generations.

The Civil War alters life for a Louisiana plantation mistress and a poor seamstress. Corrie May Upjohn stands on the levee, watching men unload the riverboats and wishing she could travel far away. A poor preacher's daughter, she is only fourteen and her life is already laid out for her: marriage in a year or two, and then decades of drudgery. At nearby Ardeith Plantation, Ann Sheramy Larne lives in luxury, but feels just as imprisoned as Corrie May. Their lives could not be more different, but when the horrors of war and Reconstruction come to Louisiana and the Old South begins to fall, these two women will band together to survive.

In 1912, Eleanor Upjohn sits with her father near a work camp, overseeing the construction of a levee on the Mississippi. In a region shattered by war, levees mean stability and prosperity. While Eleanor is a modern woman - practical, impatient, and ready for the future - she cannot help but fall for a man still steeped in the ways of the Old South. Kester Larne is the heir to Ardeith, a sprawling Louisiana plantation whose glory days are long behind it, and he sweeps Eleanor off her feet. Only after they marry does she learn that Ardeith is mortgaged to the hilt, and she will need every ounce of her ingenuity to save it... and her marriage.