jpsober
North Carolina, 1859. Sycamore Home is everything the Rittermark family has built over generations-a prosperous cotton plantation, a respected family name, and a way of life its patriarch believes will last forever. But beneath the quiet routines of plantation life, old loyalties are beginning to crack. Ezekiel Rittermark cannot reconcile the institution of slavery with his own conscience. His twin sister, Penelope, finds herself caught between duty and love. Their older brother, Josiah, a hardened cavalry officer, struggles to protect the family while living by a code forged on distant battlefields.
As the nation descends into Civil War, each sibling is pulled down a different path. Zeke abandons his inheritance and heads north, where he becomes a newspaper correspondent and later serves on the staff of General Winfield Scott Hancock, witnessing the war's bloodiest battles firsthand. Penelope flees the South to begin a new life, only to discover that the past is unwilling to let her go. Josiah remains bound to the home he loves, forced to choose between loyalty to family and loyalty to a crumbling world.
From the peaceful study of Sycamore Home in 1859 to the smoke of Gettysburg and the final collapse of the Confederacy, The Rittermarks is a sweeping historical saga of family, love, friendship, and the price of choosing conscience over inheritance. At its heart lies one question: What happens when the country tears itself apart... and your own family is standing on both sides?