In Kansas and Missouri, the War Between the States started long before Fort Sumter. Daniel Fitzgerald, a southerner who tries to settle Kansas and leave behind his tormented Louisiana roots, soon finds that in Kansas Territory you have to take sides or die. Taking sides doesn’t lessen the chances of a violent death, it just determines who is going to try and kill you.

For Massachusetts born Rebecca Styles, who comes to Kansas to insure freedom for slaves, the choice is easy. Or is it? When she meets Daniel, she is forced to take a new look at all of the ideas she took for granted.

Daniel’s half-brother and former slave, André, knows his first loyalty belongs to his friends and family, not a lofty ideal.

Throw into the mix all the larger than life characters who played a part in the sectional violence that engulfed the nation in its bloodiest war and you have a novel with all the drama of the era.  You’ll meet William Quantrill, Joseph Shelby, James Lane, John Brown, General Kirby Smith, Frank and Jessie James, Cole Younger, Bloody Bill  Anderson and the other men and women who have shaped this nation into what it is today.

You will never look at any of them as just characters in a history book again.