It's 1838, and May Bedloe works as a seamstress for her cousin, the famous actress Comfort Vertue-until their steamboat sinks on the Ohio River. Though they both survive, both must find new employment. Comfort is hired to give lectures by noted abolitionist, Flora Howard, and May finds work on a small flatboat, Hugo and Helena's Floating Theatre, as it cruises the border between the northern states and the southern slave-holding states. May becomes...

In 1827, Duncan Lammons, a disgraced young man from Kentucky, sets out to join the American army in the province of Texas, hoping that here he may live – and love – as he pleases. That same year, Cecelia, a young slave in Virginia, runs away for the first time. Soon infamous for her escape attempts, Cecelia drifts through the reality of slavery – until she encounters frontiersman Sam Fisk, who rescues her from a slave auction in New Orleans....

"Winter 1838--Kentucky. Determined to save her toddler son from being sold as a slave, the woman who became known as Eliza Harris trekked through the forest, in the dark of night with wild animals on her heels. Her goal: cross the Ohio River, the boundary between the North and the South, between slavery and freedom. Although the journey would be perilous, Eliza looked out at the treacherous frozen waters and quickly decided she couldn't let fear stop...

1835, Utica, New York. Newlywed Helen Galway discovers two runaway slaves hiding in the shack behind her husband's house and is suddenly faced with a terrible dilemma. Should she be a good wife and report the fugitives? Or should she help them? Meanwhile, Utica itself is caught between stark divisions as abolitionists arrive for the founding meeting of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society and newspapers accuse the group of being insurrectionists...