Even in bondage, the newly arrived African slaves considered themselves free. Led by Nanny and Cudjoe, the siblings escaped the Simmonds' plantation and went in different directions to forge their destiny in the new country called Jamaica. But before Cudjoe escaped the plantation his assignation with the housemaid, Martha, produced a daughter called Asha.
Intertwined in the stories of Nanny and Cudjoe, former slaves, who would do anything for freedom, are the stories of the Simmonds' plantation owners who had their own sets of problems.
And bridging the divide of slave and free, rich and poor, black and white is Asha the house slave and Mark Simmonds whose attachment was inappropriate for the times they lived in and whose lives brought it all together.