A fast-paced, action-packed historical romance set during the last days of the Old South When unimaginable calamities strike, Mercy Carver, a poor London woman, wonders what she has done to deserve such immeasurable suffering. It is only when she faces imminent death in the snow and ice-encrusted Virginia wilderness that she finally understands the power of destiny. Mercy is passionate. She loves and hates in equal measure. Can love and hatred give her the strength she needs now to reach a Northern state, and free a runaway slave wanted for murders, she committed? America and her people are strangled in an uncompromising political stalemate. Southern states have seceded from the Union, and a civil war is imminent. Mercy Carver: her journey is just beginning. Also by Jana Petken The Guardian of Secrets Review "A fast-paced, action-packed historical romance set during the last days of the Old South." Kirkus Review "A female Dickens." Amazon Reviewer)