In this epic saga that blends legend and fact, Miss Emily Morgan, once known as Rose, uses her breathtaking beauty and intelligence to charm every man who crosses her path, and through soaring ambition, loyalty, and suffering helps determine the future of the Republic of Texas as well as the United States. This is surprising since the women of her lineage are slaves. But she is an exceptional woman whose dream to "be somebody special" prompts her to make choices that find her entangled in an adventure of love, friendship, romance, rebellion, rapid change, disappointment, and joy during the days of slavery. Her triumphs and tragedies revolve around historically accurate events as she pursues a life of compromise and betrayal. Along the way, the reader is swept into a web of drama and excitement, building up to the surrender of Generalissimo Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna's sword, army and Mexico's claim of the frontier land of Texas to General Sam Houston and his ill-disciplined Texans following the Battle of San Jacinto. * * * * * Ben Durr, a farm boy from Lincoln County, Mississippi, lived in Texas for many years and was CEO of Memorial Hospital in Uvalde, Texas. Growing up on a farm with sharecroppers gave him insight into the cultural and societal structures of the South. Durr visited all the sites involved in the Battle of San Jacinto and spent twenty years researching, collecting and refining the details of the heroine in this book, his first novel. Anne Corwin spent the first ten years of her life in the mountains of Colombia where her parents were missionaries. She has a master's degree in social work and years of experience in journalism.