by Anya Seton
First published 1948
The Honeywood family builds their legacy around a Massachusetts inn called the Hearth and Eagle. Mehitable Honeywood watches her world transform as colonial America grows into a new nation. She marries into prosperity but faces the constant threat of losing everything she holds dear. War, economic upheaval, and family conflicts test her resolve across decades of change. The inn serves as both sanctuary and burden, connecting her to a community while demanding endless sacrifice. Mehitable must choose between personal happiness and family duty as each generation faces its own struggles. Her descendants inherit not just property but the weight of maintaining traditions in a rapidly changing world. The story follows multiple generations who discover that survival requires both holding on and letting go.
Genres: romance, american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 19th-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-legacy, found-family, survival
Setting: Massachusetts
Period: Colonial America, Early United States
379 pages · Hardcover · Houghton Mifflin