This novel is set in Indonesia in the seventeenth century, and it is characterized by the author's remarkable power to convey place and period. The heroine, Julie Ashley loses her family and her identity when Cromwell ravages Ireland and she is rescued from starvation by a Dutch sea captain. From Amsterdam she is eventually sent to an island in the East Indies as a partner in a 'Glove Marriage', bound irrevocably to a man she has never seen. In the mysterious island of Rua, with its luxury and cruelty, even her virtues are brought into conflict, and for the reader, the outcome remains uncertain until the end.