Eden's Gates

Lavinia Williamson, born into an abolitionist family in the mountains of Virginia, falls in love with a handsome plantation owner from eastern Virginia, marries him, and becomes the lady of the manor. Viewing the social injustice of human bondage on their plantation, she becomes a friend to the family's slaves. After the death of her own daughter, she is especially taken with one of her husband's daughters by a beautiful slave. Lavinia is torn between the love/hate relationship she has with her philandering husband, the responsibilities of running a tobacco plantation worked by the slaves she begins to love as her own people, and the question of human rights. What can one woman do to change the world around her? Lavinia's involvement with the Underground Railroad that secretly operates through Virginia gives her life meaning, but it also creates fear, secrecy, hope, failure, triumph, and the conviction that she is in the right.