Charles Reeves
"I shall never forget the moment I first laid eyes on Charles Reeves.  He stood well over six feet in height and I imagined him to be as handsome as any actor who trod the boards.  His green eyes sparkled with mirth and though he could not have been more than nineteen years of age, his features were as princely as a picture book engraving of Wilfred of Ivanhoe.    He spoke with a distinctive Brahmin accent, his baritone so resonant I was sure he would put Maurice Barrymore to shame."

 

Edgar Reeves
"Edgar was hardly robust but the paleness of his skin set off a pair of the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen. They were dark and lustrous and his features had the look of a poet." Delicate in body, fragile in health and spirit, Edgar is Dr. Reeves' nephew, the son of Reeves' beloved sister who died in childbirth. The recipient of much of Dr. Reeves' inner turmoil, Edgar has grown into a young man who battles his own private demons with drugs and alcohol. Since he was a young boy Edgar has been the guardian of his uncles's clandestine affairs and only finds the will to battle him after meeting and falling in love with Lucy Hathorne. 

 

Dr. Morris Reeves
The speaker was a tall, distinguished gentleman with dark hair and mustache, well into middle-age, at least thirty-eight.  He bore a marked resemblance to both Charles and Edgar, but of course he would, he was their father.

 

Ziba Bram Hathorne
Exquisite was the only word to describe Ziba Bram Hathorne. Her dark blonde hair was coiffed in a chignon with a fringe of ringlets framing a face as delicate as that of a porcelain doll.  She wore a mourning gown styled in the new fashion, form-fitting ebony velvet without a bustle.  Only eighteen and the most beautiful creature in Boston.

 

Bride Carew Greer
"A handsome woman in well-starched servant's garb opened an elaborately carved oak door. From her coloring, Lucy surmised the woman was also of mixed blood. The woman possessed European features and skin of pale gold with a scattering of freckles. Her dark auburn hair was braided in an elaborate chignon beneath a lace cap."
Strong, handsome and intelligent, Bride Greer is the product of a union between an Irish cook and a mulatto seaman from the West Indian Island of Montserrat. Raised in utter poverty in the poorest part of Boston, Bride was a child domestic who labored with her mother in the great houses of the city. She has found both a home and a husband with the Bram family and in gratitude, is determined to protect the family secret.

Prince Greer
He was tall and fine-featured with lustrous black eyes and velvet skin the color of cafe au lait. He had an elegant face framed with a carefully trimmed beard and wavy hair pomaded in place."
Prince Greer is based on a historical character, the first embalmer of color in the United States. An intelligent man of racially mixed ancestry, he was born on a vast plantation in Natchez, Mississippi. As a child, both he and his mother were wedding presents who were sent to serve a wealthy Creole family in rural Louisiana. A chance meeting during the Civil War with Dr. Bram changed the course of Prince Greer's life. He became the head embalmer of the Bram Family Mortuary and a faithful retainer of the Bram/Hathorne family.