1690s, Tidewater, Virginia. Bless, born into slavery and taken by her masters to toil in the house, faces her mother’s fury, learning that cruelty can come from any side. David, an enslaved child of a freed father, dreams of the promise of liberty made to him. Jack, an impoverished Scots-Irish boy, sails to America to be indentured but, in the hellish crossing, finds his hopes fracturing. Yet, somehow, they all will stake a claim to love.
