It is the mid-1800s as Brandon Stewart, a handsome foreign correspondent for The Illustrated London News, prepares to leave England with his wife and young son for the rice plantations of the pre-Civil War South.

But as they arrive to join his wife's family at Crawford Hill in Georgetown District, South Carolina, Brandon has no idea of what his future holds. Amid the swelling turbulence of the Deep South, Brandon and his family attempt to adjust to a new life where slaves share the same house, and the dark shadows of war loom in the near future. Assigned to report on the interrelationship of Southern politics, society, and the antislavery movement, Brandon has his hands full.

But when tragedy strikes without warning, Brandon must somehow find a way to persevere despite the uncertainty that fate and the world inevitably brings. In this historical novel, a young English family is impacted as the American Civil War begins in the Deep South and forever changes their destinies.