Passions and secrets lie panting and torrid beneath the placid surface of the lives of the genteel women and men of Amelia Island. The island's own charms have seduced me to lay claim to this place, Fernandina, Florida, as my own. The Golden Years after the Civil War brought completion of the railroad and affluence with the influx of carpetbaggers from the North. Beauty arrived as well, in the form of Katie Eppes, newly wed to one of our town's most dashing young conductors of the Florida and Peninsular Railroad, T. J. "Jeff" Eppes, great-great-grandson of President Thomas Jefferson. Katie's zest for life and disregard of acceptable social etiquette start tongues wagging and lead Jeff on a husband's less than ideal start to married bliss. Her determination to have things her way culminates in the worst of tragedies. So my story begins . . .