Winds of the South is a novel set in the pre-Civil War South that tells the story of three people caught up in the net of slavery. The protagonist is a newspaper editor in Georgia who leaves his pregnant wife to return to his birthplace in Connecticut to attend a friend's wedding. In New York, he becomes acquainted with a Broadway actress who is an ardent abolitonist. After a brief dalliance with her, he returns to Georgia thinking it was only a single moment of weakness on his part, never to be repeated. His paramour, however, later turns up in Georgia and confronts him with new challenges in both his personal and professional life.
