In the midst of World War II, a Tennessee farm boy, a Jewish Cambridge student and a German POW forge a connection that endures --- against all odds. But now everything that Will Dobbins, Dov Silverberg and Hans Hessler fought for is at risk as their descendants clash for control of the corporation they founded together. In an attempt to remake its tattered corporate image, the firm hires event planner Hadley Jacks and her sister, Kitzie, to organize a reunion for the families on St. Simons Island, Georgia, the place that changed all three men’s lives forever. As Hadley and her sister delve into the friends’ past, they uncover the life of the courageous young woman who links them all together...and the old wounds that could tear everything apart.

Biltmore House, a palatial mansion being built by the Vanderbilts, is in its final stages of construction in North Carolina. Kerry MacGregor’s future is derailed when, after two years in college in New York City, family obligations call her home to the beautiful Appalachians. Her family’s land is among the last pieces required to complete the Biltmore Estate. But something more powerful than an ambitious Vanderbilt heir could change Kerry’s fate as, one by one, more outsiders descend on the changing landscape --- a fugitive from Sicily, a reporter chasing a groundbreaking story, a debutante tainted by scandal, and a conservationist prepared to put anyone at risk to stoke the resentment of the locals.