Louisiana, 1961. The elderly Louise shoos away questions from granddaughters eager to know more about the family's distant past. But what is she hiding? As she unburdens herself to Hazel, the maid, memories and legends come pouring out from the years following the birth of the American nation: a sugarcane plantation, an abusive patriarch, a fearful wife, a headstrong daughter, and a mysterious voodoo priestess. What other dark secrets lurk, long-repressed, in the recesses of history? Léa Chrétien and Gontran Toussaint deliver a vivid, atmospheric story of generations of strong women and the secret things they do to survive, from the Civil War to the civil rights era.

In book two of this historical saga, the elderly Louise recounts her grandmother Josephine's struggles to run the family plantation in the years leading up to the American Civil War. Josephine tries to raise her son Jean to be nothing like his grandfather and uncle, whose tyranny over their slaves and the women of the family forced Josephine and her mother to resort to the services of a voodoo priestess from New Orleans. But when Jean falls for a slave named Celeste, Josephine's tolerance and values are put to the test.