(From the publisher): Emma has taken care of the Butler children
since Sarah and Frances's mother, Fanny, left. Emma wants to
raise the girls to have good hearts, as a rift in morals has
ripped the Butler household apart: Sarah and their mother oppose
the inhumanity of slavery, while Frances and their father,
Pierce, believe in the Southern lifestyle and treatment of
blacks. Now, to pay off mounting gambling debts, Pierce decides
to cash in his "assets." He hosts the biggest slave auction in
American history, at the price of his humanity. During these two
days, the skies weep on the proceedings below, for although
Butler promises Emma's parents not to sell her: money,
desperation, and greed enable him to justify his any misdeed.
Through flashbacks and flash-forwards, and shifting first-person
points of view, readers will travel with Emma and others through
time and place, and come to understand that every decision has
its consequences, and final judgment is passed down not by man,
but by his maker. Original t