Hannah Pendarves killed a gentleman, believing him to be the rightful victim of the sea, but when fate places her as a spy in the house of her victim's kindly brother, she is left with an impossible choice between her own people, who feed themselves by wrecking ships and stealing their cargoes, and the man she is coming to admire and secretly, though hopelessly, love. Poldark meets Jamaica Inn in this story of drowned maidens, riotous weddings, fleeing lovers, righteous sailors, and a wrecker's daughter who makes herself up to be the queen of the Falmouth underworld and earns the moniker, The Black Witch of Cornwall.