Publisher's Synopsis
In the long hot summer of 1847, the pregnant slave Dessa Rose sits in a white man's cellar, waiting for her child to be born so that she can be hanged. A world away, in the unfinished mansion of her run-down plantation, the ex-debutante Miss Rufel, abandoned by husband and family, also waits - a prisoner of a different kind. It is to Miss Rufel's farm that Dessa is brought by the runaways who rescue her - and it is there that, out of hatred and suspicion, an unforgettable friendship is forged.
