l fiction. It is a love story, a rags-to-riches story, an anti-racist story and a triumph over injustice story. Taking place in the antebellum South, it tells the tale of how a lowly slave... a hidden genius... defies all odds and becomes one of the richest men in America. In Pygmalion* style, the young slave is taught proper elocution and English grammar, a gift that takes him from picking cotton to dealing with some of the wealthiest and most powerful men in America. It's also a touching, tender... if unlikely... love story between two young men... one a slave, the other his owner. It takes the reader from the rural South to New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and London. It makes the incredible, credible.

*Pygmalion is the George Bernard Shaw play on which the movie "MY Fair Lady" was based. It shows how the gift of language can change a guttersnipe into a princess.