GROWING UP ON THE THRIVING PLANTATION CALLED THE MEADOWS, LILLIAN BOOTH CHERISHES THE BRIGHTEST DREAMS...
Lillian's world is full of grand parties, of sunshine and promises, as thrilling as the fairl tales Mama spines for her and her little sister Eugenia. No one, not even her cold, stern Papa and her Bible-spouting sister Emily, can crush her spirits--until the day Emily reveals the shattering secret of Lillian's birth, a secret Mama sadly cannot deny. Still Lillian refuses to believe Emily's hateful claim that she is evil, a curse...even when sweet, gentle Eugenia loses her fragile hold on life, and Mama retreats further into her fantasies. But when tragedy befalls her best friend, the one boy whose tender heart mirrors her own, Lillian comes to believe Emily's grim words. Meekly, she endures her penance, finding a strange solace in the endless repitition of prayers in a room stripped of all comforst. Lillian's heart is torn anew when, in a drunken haze, Papa subjects her to the most brutal degradation. Then Papa loses The Meadows in a card game, and Lillian is faced with a new and terrifying prospect. Arrogant, handsome playboy Bill Cutler will return the plantation--if Lillian will marry him! Now Lillian must leave her girlhood home behind, and make a bold new beginning as the mistress of a hotel called Cutler's Cove...
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