This historical novel introduces four young people whose lives are bound together by the nightmare of slavery: Juliet rebels against convention and disguised as a boy joins a trading voyage to Africa on her father's ship; Dand, a Scottish crofter's son is abducted; Gbodi is stolen from her African village and Hassan, son of a slave trader, is entrapped in a reversal of roles. Juliet must face the horror of what her family's business entails and her responsibility for the fate of her three companions on board.