Deborah Ann, a rich Southern belle, bestows her heart and soul on Marcel Chamard who expects to live his life as his father and grandfather did before him, marrying well, and loving elsewhere. She loses her home to the Yankees. She fears she will lose her beloved to his quadroon mistress.

   Lucinda, born and bred to become a rich Creole's placee, has always believed she was Marcel's true love. She knows he must marry a white woman, and can accept he must have children with the proud, pale Deborah Ann. But must she also share his heart?

   Nicolette, Marcel's half sister born on the wrong side of the color divide, is a free woman of color passionately dedicated to the end of slavery. She involves herself in the Union's efforts to defeat the Confederacy and meets Captain Finnian McKee. He looks at her light skin and fails to see she is not a woman he could take home to his family. Their love seems impossible in the face of prejudice, mistrust, and the upheaval of war.

   The saga begins with Always and Forever, the story of Creoles and Cajuns and slaves on the cane plantations of Louisiana. Ever My Love continues into the next generation who, as slave-holders grow increasing brutal in their effort to stop the tide of Abolition, help slaves escape through the Underground Railroad. Evermore takes the families into the pain and loss of a war that shatters all the expectations of class and color and honor.