Heaven’s Hill Plantation, upriver from Georgetown, South Carolina,1807: Sixteen-year-old Alexandra Degambia is the daughter of a wealthy African-American planter and a social-climbing mother who can pass for white. Balancing on the tightrope between girlhood and the complicated adult world is a treacherous undertaking. One misstep could ruin a young woman’s prospects forever.

Alexandra yearns to establish her own place in the world as an accomplished violinist. She assumes her talent and her family’s wealth will pave her way to success—however, her life becomes a nightmare when her mother dies and her father is murdered by bigoted officials eager to seize the plantation for their own.

Alexandra and her little brother, Jimi, heirs to Heaven’s Hill, have targets on their backs. They are forced to flee for their lives.

What the future holds is uncertain. Sometimes fate has its own plans.