A Civil war time novel. Made in Oprah's book club

In the 1860s Confederate South, a farmer and slave possessor loses his wife and home in a Union Army attack. He flees the American Civil War for Brazil where he sees new love and a new starting, but as he fights to protect the interracial concordance of his new life, he cannot escape his past.

On awinter of 1864 at a time when a war that could be called anything but civil was severe on and nearing an ill conclusion of sorts for some. When Hunter McAdams, a modest farmer and slave owner, is burnt out and his wife murdered by Union soldieries, he is drawn into the Confederate army to fight at what would be the 3 rd most murderous fight of the Civil War.

Avenge for the death of his wife fully occupies him until he is miraculously saved from being murdered in fight. To avoid torment and imprisonment at the discredited Union prison Camp Douglas, Hunter defects from the Confederate Army and gets out to Brazil in search of a new life along with finally up to 40,000 other Southerners in a mass exodus and the largest number of displaced Americans to leave the country in U.S. history.

Many Southerners resisted to take the oath of allegiance or "swallow the dog" as they called it, and learned little forgiveness in their hearts for the Union. Many had nothing to go back to or stay for. The Southerners land in Rio first, then branch out to form some 20 settlements all of which fail except for one that exists to this day, a place called Americana.

In Brazil, Hunter finds the power, wildness, the severity and sheer immensity of the Amazon jungle to be a dashing place to live, but eventually he creates a new slave-free farm and absorbs into the welcoming society in Brazil where he innovates mass farming (the use of a mule and plow) to the locals who up to that point were only using hand tools. His new farm prospers and many new fortunes are made due to the productive soil in Americana. He also unexpectedly finds a second chance at romance in a completely harmonious multi-cultural surroundings and falls for a lovely local woman of African descent.

But when his former father in law and mentor arrives with ambitions of reconstructing his slave imperium due to the fact slaveholding was still legal in Brazil, he finds Hunter in love with a woman of another race and absorbing into Brazilian culture to his shock, surprise, and disgust. He feels that Hunter has betrayed and dishonored his daughter's memory.

Finally, when one of Hunter's recent family is taken in the night to be enslaved, the slavery effect hits too close to home and he is driven to determine what he stands for, who his allegiances are really to, and ultimately to fight to help rid slavery and the old attitudes about race from Americana once and for all