Born in a shack on Natchez-Under-the-Hill, the abode of cutthroats, thieves, brawling river men and ladies of easy virtue, Ross Pary has but one goal: to reach Natchez-on-the Hill,where gentlemen planters lived a life of graciousness and ease in their portico-ed mansions.

Yet, he loves a woman from Cuba enough to invade her country to in a desperate search to find her. Floodtide dramatizes Ross Pary's struggle for social acceptance despite his the passions and tangled loves. It is the story of a chivalrous South overreaching itself for an overseas slave empire in the floodtide of its declining fortunes in the lush decade prior to the Civil War.