The Devereux plantation on Tobacco Road is haunted by a lifetime of forbidden affairs, devious plots and secret blood ties that will bind three families in misery, deception and murder for generations to come. The story begins in New Orleans in the mid 1800s just before the Civil War. The patriarchs of two affluent Families, the Devereuxs and the Marchands, devised a plan to link their families and their fortunes to become a powerful force in New Orleans. But a forbidden love affair between the sole heir of the Devereux fortune, John, and a beautiful slave girl, Marie, could destroy them all.