East Texas, 1916 In the great mansions of Houston Avenue, Howbutker, live the town's founding families: Toliver, Warwick and DuMont. Over generations they have settled their differences by exchanging roses: a red rose to ask for forgiveness and a white rose to accept. But when precocious teenager Mary Toliver inherits cotton plantation Somerset from her father Vernon, the first seeds of discontent are sown. And it is not the last time Mary will sell her soul for the sake of the family soil. When she declines the proposal of handsome timber magnate Percy Warwick, it is a shattering choice that will spell heartbreak for generations to come.