Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Fourteen years after the end of slavery, Lord Henry Hardin and his wife, Lady Bertha, enjoy an entitled life in Union County, Arkansas. Until he faces a devastating reality: Bertha is unable to bear children. If Henry doesn't produce an heir, the American branch of his family name will die out. So Henry, desperate to preserve his aristocratic family lineage, does the unthinkable.
When Salome, a former slave and Henry's mistress, gives birth to a white-skinned, blue-eyed daughter, Henry orders a reluctant Lady Bertha to claim the child as their own...allowing young Margaret to pass into the white world of privilege.
As Margaret grows older, unaware of her true parentage, devastating circumstances threaten to shroud her in pain and shame...but then, ultimately, in revelation. Despite rumors about Margaret's true identity, Salome is determined to transform her daughter's bitter past into her secure future while Henry goes to extraordinary lengths to protect his legacy. Spanning decades and generations, marked by tragedy and redemption, this unforgettable saga illuminates a family's fight for their name, for survival, and for true freedom.
Synopsis
A mother's devotion. A daughter's search for identity. This is a heartbreaking and hopeful novel of love, class, and race set against the backdrop of the post-Civil War South.
In the late nineteenth-century South, Margaret Hardin has been raised with the advantages befitting her titled parents in the finest house in Arkansas. Unknown to the light-skinned, blue-eyed girl, she's been born into a secret. Though her father--a man desperate to produce an heir--is white, Margaret's real mother, a woman named Salome, is black. As the years go by, Margaret's hidden history allows her to pass into a world of privilege. When the truth of her ancestry is revealed, she is confronted by a father who'll risk anything to protect his legacy and embraced by Salome, who is determined to reclaim the child she loves. It's a pivotal point for Margaret--as well as for the generations that will follow.
Spanning decades, this unforgettable saga illuminates the empowering struggle of race and reinvention, of loyalty and family, and of finding your identity and the true freedom that comes with it.