Boston lawyer Declan Fitzgerald impulsively gives up his settled life--including a fiancee--to buy Manet Hall, a crumbling plantation manor near New Orleans that he has always coveted. In this southern Gothic setting, he discovers an appropriately sordid story of events long-past but still reverberating, and falls in love with beautiful Cajun barmaid Lena Simone.

Nora Roberts (b. Eleanor Marie Robertson, October 10, 1950 in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA), is a bestselling American author of more than 165 romance novels, and she writes as J.D. Robb for the "In Death" series. She also has written under the pseudonym Jill March, and by error some of her works were published in the UK as Sarah Hardesty.

Nora Roberts was the first author to be inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame. As of 2006, her novels had spent a combined 660 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List, including 100 weeks in the number-one spot. Over 280 million copies of her books are in print, including 12 million copies sold in 2005 alone. Her novels have been published in 35 countries.