Showing results by author "Naomi Finley" in All Categories

In 1850 Charleston, South Carolina, brutality and cruelty simmer just under the genteel surface of Southern society. In an era where ladies are considered mere property, beautiful and headstrong Willow Hendricks' father has filled her life with turmoil, secrets, and lies. Her father rules her life until she finds a kindred spirit in spunky, outspoken Whitney Barry, a northerner from Boston. Together these Charleston belles are driven to take control of their own lives - and they are plunged into fear and chaos in their quest to fight for the rights of slaves.

Willow Hendricks is now the lady of Livingston. She manages this plantation with her father and best friend Whitney Barry. The two women continue her parents’ secret abolitionist mission. They use the family’s ships and estates to transport escaped slaves along the channels to freedom. Willow’s love for Bowden Armstrong is as strong as ever, but she is not ready to marry and have a family because of her attention to these noble pursuits. Torn by her love for him, can their bond survive his reluctance to support her efforts with the underground railroad?

Years have passed since Jimmy and his daughter Magnolia were sold to owners in different states. Broken and beyond hope, a last attempt to end his suffering earned him a night in the pit. Now his owner is eager to be rid of this troublesome slave before he loses the money he paid. He takes Jimmy to town to be sold and they meet slave owner and reformed abolitionist Charles Hendricks along the road. Charles can see Jimmy is a lost soul—a mere reflection of the man he once was because of his painful existence, so he asks to purchase the slave and offers Jimmy a special proposition.

Henrietta and her daughter, Mary Grace, are sold and taken to Charleston, South Carolina, to be auctioned. Separated from her husband, Henrietta now faces an uncertain future and the possibility of becoming estranged from her child. Luckily, fortune shifts in her favor when Olivia Hendricks—the wife of a wealthy planter—purchases her as a nursemaid for their unborn infant. During her years at Livingston Plantation, Henrietta finds sanctuary and safety in the big house, eventually becoming a caregiver to both Mrs. Hendricks and her child.

Charles Hendricks flees to London after his wife gives birth to a child belonging to his younger brother. Devastated, he numbs the pain with drink. Leaving a tavern one night, he stumbles upon a cloaked female figure lying in a dark alley. Charles helps the stranger, unaware the chance encounter would eventually alter his life forever when hidden secrets and feelings are revealed. A few years later, he returns to London to search for this woman with the goal of setting right his wrongs of the past. Will unraveled secrets change everything for Charles after he finds her?

Ruby Stewart is a slave living under the false pretense of a freed Black woman in New York in 1853. She abides in turmoil, longing to know where she came from. This unrest has caused her to be plagued by dreams and visions of a man she calls the "Black Knight" and a woman with haunting green eyes. Ruby's only recollection of her past is the name Mag, until she receives a letter from friend Willow Hendricks in the South describing a slave girl that passed through her family’s plantation over 20 years ago. Does Ruby dare hope this slave child might be her?

The year 1870. The onset of the Gilded Age. Times are changing, and so are the ideals centered around women, but Kat Darlington’s troubles go much deeper than the world’s inequality, and they occur closer to home.