Plantation Trilogy Series

The New York Times–bestselling author of Jubilee Trail does “a grand job of storytelling” in this saga of pioneers who settled the Louisiana wilderness (The New York Times). For his service in the king’s army during the French and Indian War, Judith Sheramy’s father, a Puritan New Englander, is granted a parcel of land in far-off Louisiana. As the family ventures down the Mississippi to make a new home in the wilderness, Judith meets Philip Larne, an adventurer who travels in the finest clothes Judith has ever seen. He is a rogue, a killer, and a thief—and the first thing he steals is Judith’s heart.   Three thousand acres of untamed jungle, populated by native tribes and overrun with jaguars and pirates, await Philip in Louisiana. He and Judith will struggle through their stormy marriage and the challenges of the American Revolution as they strive to build an empire for future generations.   This is the first novel in Gwen Bristow’s Plantation Trilogy, which also includes The Handsome Road and This Side of Glory.

The Civil War alters life for a Louisiana plantation mistress and a poor seamstress in this novel by the New York Times–bestselling author of Jubilee Trail.   Corrie May Upjohn stands on the levee, watching men unload the riverboats and wishing she could travel far away. A poor preacher’s daughter, she is only fourteen and her life is already laid out for her: marriage in a year or two, and then decades of drudgery.   At nearby Ardeith Plantation, Ann Sheramy Larne lives in luxury, but feels just as imprisoned as Corrie May. Their lives could not be more different, but when the horrors of war and Reconstruction come to Louisiana and the Old South begins to fall, these two women will band together to survive.   From the bestselling author of Calico Palace, this is the second novel in the poignant Plantation Trilogy, which also includes Deep Summer and This Side of Glory.

A dramatic love story set amid the changing world of early twentieth-century Louisiana from the New York Times–bestselling author. In 1912, Eleanor Upjohn sits with her father near a work camp, overseeing the construction of a levee on the Mississippi. In a region shattered by war, levees mean stability and prosperity. While Eleanor is a modern woman—practical, impatient, and ready for the future—she cannot help but fall for a man still steeped in the ways of the Old South.   Kester Larne is the heir to Ardeith, a sprawling Louisiana plantation whose glory days are long behind it, and he sweeps Eleanor off her feet. Only after they marry does she learn that Ardeith is mortgaged to the hilt and she will need every ounce of her ingenuity to save it . . . and her marriage.   This is the third novel in Gwen Bristow’s Plantation Trilogy, which also includes Deep Summer and The Handsome Road.   “A good story . . . An interesting psychological conflict . . . [And] there is a great deal more to it than that.” —TheNew York Times  

A saga of Louisiana by an author who “belongs among those Southern novelists who are trying to interpret the South and its past in critical terms” (The New York Times). Published in the late 1930s by New York Times–bestselling author Gwen Bristow, the Plantation Trilogy is an epic series of novels that bring to life the history of Louisiana—from its settlement in the late eighteenth century to the realities of slavery and poverty to the post–World War I era—via the intertwined lives of the members of three families: the Sheramys, the Larnes, and the Upjohns.   Deep Summer is the story of Puritan pioneer Judith Sheramy and adventurer Philip Larne, who marry and strive to build an empire in the Louisiana wilderness during the American Revolution.   The Handsome Road tells the story of plantation mistress Ann Sheramy Larne and poor seamstress Corrie May Upjohn, who forge an unlikely bond of friendship as they struggle to survive the cataclysms of the Civil War and Reconstruction.   This Side of Glory presents the story of Eleanor Upjohn, a modern young woman in the early twentieth century who marries charming Kester Larne and struggles to save the debt-ridden plantation that her husband’s ancestors founded more than one hundred years ago.