Using the lore and the folk-magic of the men and women who settled North America, Orson Scott Card has created an alternate world where magic works, and where that magic has colored the entire history of the colonies. Alvin, the seventh son of a seventh son, is a very special man indeed. He's a Maker; he has the knack of understanding how things are put together, how to create them, repair them, keep them whole, or tear them down. And he can teach his knack to others, to the measure of their own talent. Alvin has been trying to avert the terrible war that his wife, Peggy, a torch of extraordinary power, has seen down the life-lines of every American. Now she has sent him down to the city of New Orleans, or Nueva Barcelona as they call it under Spanish occupation. Alvin doesn't know exactly why he's there, but when he and his brother-in-law, Arthur Stuart, find lodgings with a family of abolitionists who know Peggy, he suspects he'll find out soon.

Born in Richland, Washington in 1951, Orson Scott Card grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. The author of numerous books, Card was the first writer to receive both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novel two years in a row, first for Ender's Game and then for the sequel, Speaker for the Dead; both titles are available as Sound Library® audiobooks. Card lives in Greensboro, North Carolina.