In her second novel about French immigrants to the New World, Green takes us into the horror of the French Revolution and the reign of terror—where a woman can lose her head because she makes lace. Vivienne Rivard, daughter of a courtesan, and raised by her lacemaker aunt, manages to escape her aunt’s fate by fleeing to the mother she scarcely knows. As the violence intensifies, her mother’s condition worsens. Vienne discovers an invitation from one of her mother’s friends to escape to America. When he mother passes away, Vienne takes it as a sign that she should escape before some neighbor turns her over to the Committee and Madame Guillotine.

When she arrives at the coast, her mother’s friend is not what she expected. She manages purchase passage to Philadelphia, where she hopes to start a new life—free of the tyranny of the revolution that has taken everyone she knows from her.

William Delaney, Irishman, carpenter, soldier, and faithful brother, worries about his younger cousin’s involvement in the whiskey trade. He worries that Washington’s nascent government, not understanding the needs of farmers in the west, will cause Finn and other farmers to openly rebel against the tax on whisky. And Liam has seen enough of war and revolution. He only wants to settle peacefully on his tract of land outside the remote village of Asylum and work the land of his dreams.

William and Vivienne cross paths in Philadelphia, when he defends her from the unwanted opinions of a Jacobin who lauds the Revolution at a party. Vivienne distrusts anyone who fails to understand the depravity of the Revolution.

As Vivienne struggles to find her place in America, circumstances seem to conspire against her. Can she find safety in her new country? Who can she trust in a world where everything is not what it seems?

Rich with historical research, the reader comes away with a better understanding of the French Revolution and the Whisky Rebellion (who would have thought to connect the two?).