If Nicholas’s untried steamboat reaches New Orleans, it will serve as a profitable packet ship between that city and Natchez, proving the power of steam as it travels up and down the Mississippi. Success in this venture would revolutionize travel and trade, open the west to expansion, and secure the Roosevelts’ future.

Lydia had used her own architectural training to design the flatboat’s interior, including a bedroom, sitting area, and fireplace. The steamship, however, dwarfs the canoes and flatboats on the river. And no amount of power or comfort could shield its passengers from risk. Lydia believes herself ready for all the dangers ahead—growing unrest among native people, disease or injury, and the turbulent Falls of the Ohio, a sixty-foot drop long believed impassable in such a large boat.

But there are other challenges in store, impossible to predict as Lydia boards that fall day. Challenges which—if survived—will haunt and transform her, as surely as the journey will alter the course of a nation . .

1900 and the dawn of a new century carries with it a sense of change, possibility, and female empowerment. As the Suffrage Movement gathers steam across the country, society women in New Orleans prepare behind parlor doors to take the reins as the only all-female krewe, Les Mysterieuses, at the leap year’s Mardi Gras celebrations. For Constance Halstead—a young, wealthy widow whose husband’s suspicious death leaves her vulnerable to the vicious Black Hand gang of Storyville—Les Mysterieuses is a rare opportunity to take control of her life and upend social convention. It’s also a fleeting escape from her grief over the death of her infant son. While for Alice Butterworth, broke, pregnant, abandoned by her husband, newly arrived from Chicago, sewing Constance’s Krewe gown means survival and an opportunity to be a part of the historic event.

Piece by piece, the breathtaking gown takes shape, becoming a symbol of strength and a path towards greater independence. But as the Mardi Gras festivities reach their fruition, a secret emerges that will cement the bond between Alice and Constance even as it threatens the lives they’re building

Based on true events and rooted in family history, Diane C. McPhail’s debut novel upends stereotypes of the Civil War South with a rare depiction of Southern Abolitionism and the experiences of three astonishing women.

On a Mississippi morning in 1859, Emily Matthews begs her father to save a slave, Nathan, about to be auctioned away from his family. Judge Matthews is an abolitionist who runs an illegal school for his slaves, hoping to eventually set them free. One, a woman named Ginny, has become Emily’s companion and often her conscience—and understands all too well the hazards an educated slave must face. Yet even Ginny could not predict the tangled, tragic string of events set in motion as Nathan’s family arrives at the Matthews farm.

A young doctor, Charles Slate, tends to injured Nathan and begins to court Emily, finally persuading her to become his wife. But their union is disrupted by a fatal clash and a lie that will tear two families apart. As Civil War erupts, Emily, Ginny, and Emily’s stoic mother-in-law, Adeline, each face devastating losses. Emily—sheltered all her life—is especially unprepared for the hardships to come. Struggling to survive in this raw, shifting new world, Emily will discover untapped inner strength, an unlikely love, and the courage to confront deep, painful truths.

In the tradition of Cold Mountain, The Abolitionist’s Daughter eschews stereotypes of the Civil War South, instead weaving an intricate and unforgettable story of survival, loyalty, hope, and redemption.