Former slave Rachel Mannheim and former slave owner Adelaide Kaltenbach fought a war to be sisters. Now that the Civil War is over, a new fight is just beginning.Adelaide, married to a Georgia cotton planter, never dreamed that she would side with the Union or the Freedmen’s Bureau. In Cass County, just after the Civil War, she’s done both. Her school for the county’s black children has earned her the warm appreciation of Captain Lewis Hart, Union war hero and Bureau agent, and the animosity of her neighbors and former friends.Her half-sister Rachel, no longer Adelaide’s slave, used to dream of being free. Free to marry. Free to make a living. Free to educate her daughter Eliza. But after emancipation, freedom remains elusive—and risky. When Rachel buys a hundred acres of cotton land, with the help of the Bureau’s dashing black lawyer, Daniel Pereira, she becomes the target of the newly-formed Ku Klux Klan.As they struggle to rebuild their lives, can each sister find the courage to face violence and hatred—and follow her heart to a new kind of freedom?
