Synopsis
Title: GOLD DOESN'T BURN - taken from the story's own line: a house fire can't melt gold, so the ring should have been in the ashes. Tagline: Her mother died in the fire. Her ring didn't.
Logline: Seven days before she marries into the most powerful family in Charleston, a court stenographer sees her dead mother's ring on her future sister-in-law's hand - the same ring that vanished the night her mother burned to death fifteen years ago. Every day of the wedding week, an anonymous "gift" arrives on her doorstep. Every gift is a piece of the night her family has spent fifteen years refusing to talk about.
Genre: Family drama / psychological mystery
Setting: Charleston and Wadmalaw Island, South Carolina - live oaks, salt marsh, old money and shrimp boats
Tone: Sweet tea and smoke. A love story slowly turning into a trial. Every episode is one day closer to the altar - and every episode, someone Ellie loves becomes a suspect.
Series engine: The old wedding rhyme. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Someone is using it to send Ellie evidence, one day at a time. She doesn't know if they are trying to save her or destroy the wedding.
Main Characters
Ellie Marsh (29) - Court stenographer at the Charleston County Judicial Center. Types 240 words a minute and remembers conversations word for word - a habit she can't turn off. When she's nervous, her fingertips "type" what people say against her leg. She has spent eight years writing down other people's worst days. She has never once said out loud what happened on hers.
Tom Marsh (61) - Ellie's father. Former shrimp-boat captain, now runs a small seafood shack on Shem Creek. Big, sunburned, gentle, almost silent. His story has never changed in fifteen years: on the night of the fire, he was twenty miles offshore.
Wade Marsh (25) - Ellie's younger brother. Marina mechanic. Fourteen months sober. He was ten and asleep inside the house when it burned, and he woke up on the wet grass outside with no memory of getting there. He has always said a man carried him out. A man in white shoes. Nobody has ever believed him.
Celeste Marsh (died 2011, age 41) - Ellie's mother. Warm, sharp, private. For six years she was the judicial clerk of Judge Harlan Ashby. She never took off her sapphire ring, and she never let anyone read the inside of it.
Julian Ashby (32) - Ellie's fiancé. Architect who restores historic houses. Funny, patient, the first man who ever made Ellie feel safe. Possibly the best person in the story. Possibly not.
Judge Harlan Ashby (66) - Julian's father. Circuit court judge, beloved by everyone, seersucker suits and white buck shoes. Ellie met his son because of him, at the end of a trial in his courtroom three years ago. He was the last person to see her mother at work.
Vivian Ashby (63) - Julian's mother. Runs the wedding like a military campaign. Cold to Ellie from day one. Ellie assumes it's snobbery. It isn't.
Tessa Ashby (27) - Julian's younger sister. Painter, just back from Lisbon. Loud, loving, completely unaware that she's wearing the most dangerous object in Charleston on her finger.
Dani Okafor (29) - Ellie's maid of honor and best friend since fourth grade. Investigative reporter for a local paper. Ellie was at Dani's house the night of the fire.
Earl Gadsden (72) - Retired county fire investigator. Signed the report that called the fire an accident. Has never been able to look Tom Marsh in the eye.
