"That was Mother's life back then: planning one daughter's wedding while plotting to kill her other daughter's lover." Award-winning author Jervey Tervalon's spellbindingly luminous novel overflows with the atmosphere of a unique place and time -- New Orleans -- and the vibrant personalities of the intriguing Du Champs. Jervey Tervalon has created a mesmerizing tale that shimmers with secrets of passion, murder, and vengeance, and with a family's veiled knowledge of the ties that can strengthen -- and destroy. For feisty young Lita Du Champ, New Orleans is a place dominated by her prosperous, hardworking family -- in particular, her strong-willed mother, Helen, who rules with an unshakable sense of propriety. It is also where Lita struggles to reconcile her loyalty to her mother with love for her restless, married sister Adele -- and tries to establish a life of her own in the face of crushing family responsibility. But neither she nor Mama Du Champ are prepared when Adele falls in love with Lucien Faure, a smooth operator with "the devil's good looks" -- and a decades-old score to settle with Helen. As Lucien's reveng.