Shunned by her late mother's privileged upper-crust circles after her handyman father marries a working-class second wife, Jocelyn Minton is befriended years later by a wealthy elderly woman who leaves Jocelyn her considerable estate.

In Edilean, Virginia, undercover detective Mike Newland uses Sara Shaw to track down a woman who is one of the most notorious criminals in the United States--and also happens to be the mother of Greg Anders, the man whom Sara plans to marry and who leaves her without explanation three weeks before the wedding.

Charleston, 1799: A daughter of Southern gentility and a gifted painter, Catherine Edilean Harcourt has no lack of suitors at home in Virginia, waiting to fulfill her dream of marriage and family. But Cay's adventurous spirit, fostered by growing up with her three brothers, is piqued while visiting her godfather in South Carolina. Bedridden with a broken leg, he asks Cay to fill in for him on an urgent task: on her way to a fancy dress ball, she must...

After being jilted at the altar, artist Sophie Kincaid hopes to start a new life in the small Virginia town of Edilean, where she finds herself being drawn to arrogant Dr. Reede Aldredge after he nearly hits her with his car.