Life is gruelling for the young women in Amsterdam's civic orphanage. The sole light in Johanna Timmerman's existence is her forbidden love for Frans, an orphan in the boys' section who has a smile like sunshine. Then he is gone, whisked across the globe to the Dutch East India Company's nascent colony at Good Hope. Floriane Peronneau's privileged world is pleasant and fulfilling until she discovers that it is all built on manipulation and lies. Far from being the devoted gentleman he seems, her husband Claes is a womanising degenerate who has led them to the edge of utter ruin. The forces closing in on him are pitiless, and time is short. While Johanna's anguish drives her to sell off her future in a desperate bid to retain hope in the present, Floriane is caught up in a terrifying game of cat and mouse. The two women's lives could not be more different. Yet, on the long, dangerous voyage to the southern tip of Africa, they will become the best of friends - and co-conspirators... This riveting novel of seventeenth century romance and intrigue sweeps the reader from the canals of Amsterdam, across the waves, to the rough-and-tumble frontier town at the Cape of Good Hope.