Isabella is a novel of its time when life was hard and intimidating, often short and frequently brutal in the cause of making many rich men even richer on both sides of the Atlantic. Even so, there were more people willing to stand up to legislate for the cause in America just as happened in Great Britain 50 years earlier to help the oppressed escape to live a better life.
It is a story of love during the Civil War when unlikely people made individual efforts to play a part in overcoming slavery. The story alternates between gunrunning on the Eastern Seaboard, a rescued slave's efforts to repay society in Boston and Canada and a wealthy young lady's adventure up the Mississippi taking a young girl to Canada for safety and her involvement with the underground railway.