""Sometimes a man has to risk everything to do what's right. Doing it is what makes him a man.""
Thirteen-year-old Michael knows he is lucky. Few slaves in 1805 Charleston are where they want to be. But Michael works on the docks and ships in Charleston Harbor, close to the seas he longs to sail. Life seems good. But when Michael's protective mistress dies, everything changes, and Michael's friend Jim encourages him to run away. Michael is torn. Should he risk everything for a chance at freedom in some unknown place? Or should he stay -- is staying safe worth staying a slave?

Antique print dealer Maggie Summer is teaching a college course on "Myths in American Culture," using prints by Currier & Ives and other nineteenth century artists to illustrate her points. As a faculty advisor, she's also dealing with the problems of students who are single parents: problems that turn dangerous when a young mother is poisoned, and events twist Maggie's own thoughts about motherhood. She suspects a sinister connection between the past and the present, and her prints could provide valuable clues. But some secrets are too hard to see -- even for an expert like Maggie -- and some crimes hit too close to home...

"In the world of antiques dealing, there are minor calamities..."like accidentally selling a rare engraving for $170 instead of $1,700. And then there are worse tragedies -- such as the chain of suspicious deaths among dealers in the weeks prior to the Rensselaer County Spring Antiques Fair. For Maggie Summer, owner of Shadow Antiques and an antique print expert, the threat of murder is far from her mind as she displays her treasures at the prestigious show. Though rumors abound, security is tight, and Maggie has been in the business too long to be easily rattled, she can't help observing her colleagues with fresh eyes. And when sudden death claims a victim in their midst, Maggie will race to stop a killer -- "if" she can distinguish those she suspects from the real deal.

Maine. Antiques. August. That's all Maggie Summer requires for a guaranteed fun getaway. But there is an unexplained urgency behind the invitation from her former college roommate, Amy Douglas. The eighteenth-century house Amy and her husband Drew are restoring in tiny Madoc, Maine, is perfect -- or it will be, once Maggie supplies just the right antique prints. But Amy's type A personality is bordering on hysteria: could her desperation to get pregnant explain the sound of the crying infant that haunts her nights? Perhaps the hostile neighbors -- resentful of transplanted New Yorkers Amy and Drew -- have Amy on edge. But when the body of a missing teenaged girl turns up on their land, Maggie knows the threat is authentic. Now everyone, even Maggie's antiques-hunter friend Will Brewer, is cast in a suspicious light -- as she scratches beneath the surface of small-town New England life, and blows the dust off secrets hidden inside a grand Maine home for generations.

She's an antique print dealer, a college professor, and now...a parent? Maggie Summer is considering adopting a child from the New Jersey agency Our World, Our Children, and she has happily agreed to stage a benefit antiques show on their behalf. With her dealer friends, her college, and her lover, Will Brewer, all donating their time and support, everything is falling into place. But someone is harboring a vicious grudge against Our World, Our Children. The adoptive mother of thirteen children is the first victim, and then Maggie begins receiving threats. With the crowded benefit set to open and hundreds of innocent lives at stake, Maggie races to preserve the future with a clue hidden in her prints from the past....