title: Behind the Columns
author: Gaffrey, Arlette
description: The year is 1846. Desiree Bordeaux is a beautiful Creole belle living with her aging grandfather, a heavy drinker and gambler who has accrued huge debts. When he dies suddenly, Desiree learns that her beautiful New Orleans plantation, Chene Vue, is to be put on the auction block.
  Desiree finds herself being wooed by Philippe Jaunet, a cruel man who lusts after Chene Vue and strikes fear in Desiree's heart. She is also being courted by the handsome and wealthy New Yorker, Lance Van Buren, but her heart belongs to another--the man who broke her heart and married someone else. Desiree is pulled in different directions, her life complicated by circumstances, misunderstandings, lies, and betrayal--and the workings of her own turbulent heart. Will love eventually win out for this southern belle? Power, passion, and deception rule in Arlette Gaffrey's latest novel, Behind the Columns.