Flynn's Folly

(Flynn and Lara were first introduced in “The Virgin Widow”, and this is their story six years later. “Flynn’s Folly” can be read as a stand-alone book or as a sequel to “The Virgin Widow”.)
The year is 1869. The bitter war between North and South is long since over. Survivors from both sides strive to rebuild shattered lives.
Flynn Sinclair, the younger son of a marquess, has known his share of heartache. The death of his beloved Melody in childbirth has left him devastated. To assuage the pain, he spends his days and nights with his friends in raucous debauchery, scarcely acknowledging the toddler girl he’s left to raise alone.
Lara Beth Newton is no longer a child and has morphed into a winsome blue-eyed beauty with lush golden curls. Only the Sinclairs know her past, that she was born into slavery and slated at the tender age of twelve to be bred to a slave from a nearby plantation. With the help of her dear auntie, Lara escaped from that living hell. Raised in the North by Flynn’s older brother and his wife, she arrives in London, where Flynn’s father, the Marquess of Danbury, has agreed to sponsor her for a Season, with the hope that she will make a good match.
It’s not long before Flynn is smitten by the young beauty he remembers as a shy and awkward girl, a girl he teased without mercy at every opportunity. Now, he has but one objective: to make her his wife.
Despite Lara’s profession of love for him, she rejects his proposal. There is no time for marriage in her life right now. She, too, has but one objective: to find her beloved auntie.
Lulubelle, the auntie who risked her own life to give her niece the precious gift of freedom, has been missing for seven years now, sold off by her master as soon as he learned of her role in Lara’s escape.
When Flynn convinces Lara that her only hope of finding her auntie is to join forces . . . and marriage . . . with him, she at last agrees. Once wed, the two embark on an adventure that will take them from the drawing rooms of Carolina, to Georgia’s farms, to the plantations and swamps of Mississippi, and on to the vibrant city of Havana.
Will Flynn and Lara find Lulubelle and bring her home? Or, was Lulubelle one of the many formerly enslaved who did not survive the war?
The search for Lulubelle begins!