Journey back to a time when the foothills of Northeast Georgia were scarcely more than a frontier, a summer retreat for the state's wealthy coastal elite, verdant watercolor vistas where the footprint of the Cherokee remained. Where one half-Cherokee, orphaned girl grows up in the shadow of a mystery. Who killed her father, and what happened to the gold he mined from the Sautee Valley? And with whom does she belong, the adoptive farm family who raised her, or her white inn-keeper grandmother? Forced from the only life she's ever known and molded into her grandmother's idea of a proper young lady, Mahala Franklin finds life in Clarkesville lonely and full of challenges. But there are at least pieces of the puzzle of her past to be fit together, and relationships that will shape her future ... with Clay Fraser, her Cherokee friend who wants to be so much more, with wealthy entrepreneur and competitor Jack Randall, with whom Mahala doesn't dare to dream of more, and with Carolyn Calhoun, unwilling socialite caught between her feelings for two very different brothers. As the lives of the coastal "summer people" mingle with those of Habersham's natives, a tapestry of love, friendship and intrigue unfolds, a tapestry laced with a brilliant thread that will lure you through all four books of The Georgia Gold Series.

In the halycon days of the 1850s, Georgia's coastal elite find a retreat in the foothills of Habersham County, where half-Cherokee Mahala Franklin goes nose to nose with arrogant rival hotel owner Jack Randall. Well aware she's not of his class Mahala can't ignore her attraction to Jack any better than she can the clues about her father's murder and the missing gold left to her in his strongbox. Carolyn's life of privilege might seem a lark to Mahala, but Carolyn is expected to overcome her awkward personality and make a brilliant match by choosing between two very different men- rice planter Devereaux Rousseau and his minister brother Dylan. Hidden loyalties are exposed and relationships threatened as Georgia seeks to become its own republic during the Civil War. Faced with taking over his family's shipping firm, Jack must choose between his Northern convictions and his Southern family, while Devereaux tests himself and his feelings for Carolyn on the battlefields of Virginia.

With her husband Devereaux Rousseau now a captain commanding Savannah's elite Oglethorpe Light Infantry on the Civil War battlefields of Virginia, Carolyn Calhoun Rousseau must prove her own backbone as she operates the family's last functioning farm in the hills of Habersham County. She draws on the support of her best friend, Mahala Franklin, half-Cherokee granddaughter of a local inn owner. Mahala battles her own frustrations with Jack Randall, rival hotel owner and coastal shipping magnate. Jack's continued reluctance to commit threatens to drive Mahala into the arms of her Cherokee childhood sweetheart, Clay Fraser. Then, tragedy brings Mahala and Carolyn to Savannah just as Sherman advances on the city—and forces everyone to confront their true feelings. Will Jack abandon his ship and its profits to the Yankees in Wilmington Harbor in order to guide them on a perilous wagon journey across Georgia, or will he abandon the woman he claims to love, but whom he now knows also has feelings for another? And even if Mahala reaches safety, could her discovery about her father's long-ago murder and missing gold prove far more dangerous than the war?

In the fourth and final installment of The Georgia Gold Series, the Randalls and Rousseaus rebuild their lives following The War Between the States. Becoming the bride of former blockade runner Jack Randall is doubly challenging for a half-Cherokee girl from the mountains, but Mahala Franklin is determined to not only make a place in old Savannah ... but bring redemption to the Randall name as well as the city's shattered society. Her unique plan enlists the help of Jack's half-sister Sylvie and cousin Ella Beth, both of whom learn that, like Jack and Mahala, love can be found in the most unlikely places. Meanwhile, battle-hardened Dylan Rousseau returns to the family farm in Habersham County, where his inner wounds threaten to crack him open as surely as the drought-baked earth he must learn to subdue. And somehow he must find a way past his brother's memory into the heart of Mahala's best friend Carolyn, the woman he has always loved. Weaving between them comes the secret promise - or the deadly lure? - of lost Confederate gold. Will it divide them forever and devour a family legacy, or will they emerge from the furnace of afflictions as Bright as Gold?