A Perilous Proposal introduces readers to a slave boy nicknamed Jake. Jake strives against his master and even his father. When his father disappears, Jake becomes angrier yet and kills a white drifter who attacked his mother. Sure his deed will be discovered, Jakes runs away. He is captured by a band of angry confederate soldiers and barely escapes with his life, then finds haven with the Union army and a soft-spoken black soldier named Micah. Micah gently urges him to let go of his anger, but Jake holds on to it with stubborn determination. Jake abandons the army and starts North, carrying a grudge and his guilty secret, on a quest to find freedom and his long-lost father. In North Carolina, he not only discovers his father, but two intriguing young women as well, one of them a former slave like himself.
