After a year in the Dumas' grand New Orleans mansion, Ruby has learned how to enjoy her new life and rejoices in the love of the father she had never known and, with her boyfriend, Beau, she has found a blissful love However, a year has done nothing to warm the iciness of her stepmother, Daphne, who sneers at Ruby's backwater upbringing, or of her sister, Gisselle, who is vindictive and backstabbing