"Oprhaned aboard a ship from Ireland, seven-year-old Lavinia arrives on the steps of a tobacco plantation where she is to live and worth with the slaves of the kitchen house. Under the care of Belle, the master's illegitimate daughter, Lavinia becomes deeply bonded to her adopted family, though she is set apart from the by her white skin. Eventually accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction, Lavinia straddles two very different world. Then she is forced to make a choice"--P. [4] of cover.