Set in the latter half of the seventeenth century, the sequel to Tidelands finds Alinor and her family caught between London, New England and Venice as sinister forces beguile and betray. Philippa Gregory's novel tracks the rise of the Tidelands family in London, Venice and New England.

Midsummer's Eve, 1670. A wealthy man waits outside a poor London warehouse to meet with Alinor, the woman he failed twenty-one years before. He has everything to offer: money, land, status - and he believes she has the only thing he cannot buy: his son and heir.

Meanwhile in New England, Alinor's brother Ned cannot find justice in the New World, as the king's revenge stretches across the Atlantic and turns the pioneers against each other and against the American Indians.

Then, a beautiful widow, Livia, arrives from Venice, telling Alinor that her son Rob has drowned and that she needs their help. She enchants the warehouse family with her sensual carefree warmth, and promises of a new profitable trade selling statues of marble and bronze to wealthy landowners. But something in Livia's story doesn't add up and the answers lies across the dark tides in Venice...