The saga of three families living in San Francisco during the earthquake, World War I and the Depression.

When Marie-Grace arrives in New Orleans in 1853, she is not sure she fits in, until an unexpected invitation opens the door to friendship.

Volunteering with her friend Cecile at a crowded New Orleans orphanage during the yellow fever epidemic of 1853, Marie-Grace discovers that it is not just the orphans who need help.

A wealthy and notorious clan, the Bellefleurs live in a region not unlike the Adirondacks, in an enormous mansion on the shores of mythic Lake Noir. They own vast lands and profitable businesses, they employ their neighbors, and they influence the government. A prolific and eccentric group, they include several millionaires, a mass murderer, a spiritual seeker who climbs into the mountains looking for God, a wealthy noctambulist who dies of a chicken...

Shortly after Meriweather Lewis reached St. Louis in 1803 to plan for his voyage to the Pacific with William Clark, he prepared his first packet of flora and fauna from west of the Mississippi and dispatched it to President Jefferson. The cuttings, which were later planted in Philadelphia and Virginia, were supplied by Lewis's new French friend, Pierre Chouteau, who took them from a tree growing in the garden of his mansion. One of the best-known...