High Hearts — Rita Mae Brown

Bright, gutsy and outrageous, Geneva Chatfield is the newly married daughter of the world's most renowned horse-breeder and the best rider in the South. So when Fort Sumter's guns signal the start of the Civil War, Geneva cuts her hair, dons a uniform and rides off as 'Jimmy" Chatfield to enlist in the Confederate Army and be with her new husband, Nash. But there are complications: Major "Mars" Vickers finds himself inexplicably attracted to the youngest soldier in the company Jimmy Chatfield... while on the home front there is Di-Peachy, Geneva's slave, whose beauty one man kills for and whose heritage is the Chatfields' best-kept secret... Lutie, Geneva's mother, a Southern lady who discovers new purpose nursing the wounded ... and Sin-Sin and Ernie June, the servants who actually run the plantation, vying for power with laughter and tears, as they see their way of life irrevocably drawing to a close.