"He came for me," she said. "All that way on horseback. To Lake Pontchartrain." With these words, whispered from the lips of a frail old woman, begins a search for their meaning that leads to a tale of passion, honor and loss that opens in the Reconstruction South and ends only with a final truth revealed in the years following World War Two. Set largely in the Piedmont region of North and South Carolina, 'Lake Pontchartrain: A Novel of Love and Betrayal' blends memoir with historical fiction to reveal the lives and times of its three principle characters: Eleanor Maitland Forrester, who lived through Civil War and Reconstruction and a life-changing personal tragedy; John Deloach, the man she loves in defiance of social convention; and her companion and former slave, Deecee. Their stories are entwined with that of the narrator himself, who through their lives gains insight into his own. The novel is a love story, a mystery and a compelling account of a cataclysmic time in American history. It is also a personal memoir of the narrator's journey to enlightenment and along the way has something to say about love-both romantic and familial-loyalty, patriotism, war and, finally, honor, an idea far more complex in this story than as a rubric in the Boy Scout oath.