Band of Angels

Centers on the life of Southern belle Amantha Starr - Manty - in the mid-nineteenth century, focusing on her romantic life and her views on and association to slavery. The privileged daughter of a Kentucky plantation owner, she has a liberal view of slavery learned from her father in he never having beat or sold a slave, although he does keep them, and she being friends with many of the plantation's slaves. Manty's life changes following her father's passing, she forced to move to New Orleans where she, against her will, becomes associated with wealthy Hamish Bond, who, like her father, has a liberal view of keeping slaves, and who he does not consider "property" in they largely free to come and go within the confines of slave ownership. Of his slaves, Michele is in love with him, while Rau-Ru, who Hamish has provided access to education and other privileges, secretly hates him in he feeling this passive ownership worse than knowing with other slave owners their place. In his New Orleans life, Hamish is trying to run from his past. As Manty's view of Hamish softens over time, things further change with the onset of the Civil War and the Union forces moving into the south which not only separates them but places his life in jeopardy. While many men have shown her romantic interest and/or love over her adult life, Manty, in this situation, comes to understand where her heart lies. Everything is affected by what she and much of the world learned about her following her father's passing: that is she not white, but biracial, her mother one of her father's slaves.