Their hearts fired by the dreams and ambitions of a glorious heritage, Mary Eden Stanhope and her husband, Burke, built a new dynasty in lush, bountiful Alabama following the Civil War. The magnificent plantation flourished. Theirs was a dazzling world that defied all boundaries...until the night the hooded riders would come to shatter the dream -- first with murder, then with a violent kidnapping. Missing was their daughter, radiant blonde-haired Eve Stanhope, swept away to a destiny that would test her to the core. And their only hope lay with young Stephen Eden, a British stranger with his own dark secrets and the indomitable courage to fight for freedom and love.

EVE--The daughter who reaped the "sins" of the father, her Eden pride and passion would provide her with a fighting spirit to survive the South's cruelty and the West's wild new land.

STEPHEN--The outcast whose heritage was a legacy of shame, his blazing love for Eve would send him on a dangerous quest to rescue the women he claimed as his own.

MARY--The mother who had sacrificed her world for the husband she loved now much face a terrible truth about his loyalties and about the turmoil within her heart.

BURKE--The father, whose fierce dedication to freedom for all men would jeopardize his family and put him between the rock of his beliefs and the hard place of losing all he loved.