It is the first time that Isabella Galloway has returned to Evansville since she made her escape from her egotistical and controlling mother four years earlier. Bella would not have come now, if it were not for Leona Hodge, the woman she considered her real mother. Leona's urgent telegram informing Bella that her mother, the famous Virginia Galloway, was on her deathbed, was quite unexpected and Bella did not truly believe Virginia could be dying.

When Bella left Evansville she had also left behind the love of her life, Neil Whitely, because she believed he had been unfaithful to her with none other than her own mother, Virginia. The prospect of seeing him again filled her with dread, because no matter how hard she tried to forget him, she could not.

Bella traveled to France and had become a distinguished artist. By the time she returned to the United States and took a position at Carrington Academy as instructor, she considered herself truly independent. Her fear that the trip to her hometown would undo everything she had worded so hard to accomplish would only be the tip of what was to befall her as she discovers the curse of the Black Diamond Lavaliere.

The mysterious disappearance of Lady Katherine Pendul has Scotland Yard baffled and left without evidence against the only suspect, her husband, Sir Royden. In a desperate attempt to gain evidence, Inspector Wesley persuades Elizabeth Courtland, under the guise of a governess, to enter into Sir Royden's household and act as a spy. Beth, a young lady of independent means and self-proclaimed spinster, a rarity in Victorian England, was ready for a change and the lure of the unknown she would face at Pendmore Estate intrigued her. Beth quickly becomes embroiled in the family's affairs and not only finds herself the victim of a sinister plot of murder and deceit, but realizes that she has succumbed to that absurd notion called love.

Rebecca Hall, a lovely young nurse from Louisiana, travels with her family to a thriving riverboat town on the Ohio River, before the turn of the century and eventually marries Charles Thain. Rebecca believes that she has found happiness with Charles, but things quickly deteriorate and their marriage ends in tragedy, putting into motion the nightmare that has haunted her since her early days in Louisiana, when a notorious voodoo witch, Grandma Phoebe, curse her. Rebecca finds herself embroiled in circumstances beyond her knowledge of nursing when she becomes the victim of a series of attacks by a predator bent on killing her as he has other young women in the city. Her journey leads her through an intricacy of deceit before she can separate the truth from the facade.

From the time she was a small girl, 28-year-old Maggie Gaffney disregarded the gift that her Ganny Gaffney proudly insisted she had inherited from her father. She always regarded the premonitions and overwhelming feelings of danger as nothing special, just common everyday feelings.

The fiery haired Irish lass who grew up in the brownstones in Chicago, was summoned by her maternal grandfather to visit him in his huge mansion, Glenmoor Manor, in Southern Indiana. Maggie had no wish to know Donovan O'Connor, a wealthy businessman, who had disowned her mother when she married Maggie's father and she would have refused to go if her Granny Gaffney had not insisted.

The headstrong Maggie agrees to go. When a feeling of impending doom overcomes her on the train, she dismisses it. But after her arrival, she becomes embroiled in a mystery that involves her grandfather, a secret society, and murder.

Trying to unravel the mystery, Maggie finds herself in peril as well as falling in love. She begins to believe that here just may be some truth to her gift, her Irish Legacy.

Laurel Marsh, orphaned at the age of four, spent an unhappy life with her aunt, Edna Marsh. As soon as she met Caroline Blissendale Cayman, the young socialite of Crescent Lake, her lonely, pathetic existence finally comes to an abrupt halt with her aunt's murder. Walter Denton, her next-door neighbor, was her only friend until her alliance with Caroline. Laurel takes up residence at Blissendale Hall only to discover that Caroline's notorious stepfather, Evan Grey, a three time widower, has an unexpected effect on her. Laurel's meek mannered life is thrown into turmoil as she discovers the truth about her father and the plot of the man that wishes her dead.