It’s always a little disconcerting when inanimate objects become, of themselves, animate.

The characters in Kate Chopin’s stories are usually residents of Louisiana, and many are Creoles of various ethnic or racial backgrounds. Many of her works are set in Natchitoches in north-central Louisiana, a region where she lived.

A young man goes off to seek his fortune and falls in love with a woman who restores him to life three times after he is killed. When he is unable to meet with her as they had planned, his real quest begins.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, also known by her first married name Charlotte Perkins Stetson, lived from July 3, 1860 to August 17, 1935, and witnessed everything from the American Civil War to the Roaring Twenties to the Great Depression.

After she is forgotten by the love of her life, a princess devises a plan to win him back. First, she needs eleven girls who look just like her.