Exiled from her home in rural, eighteenth-century France, a resilient young woman journeys through the forests of Normandy, to the oppressive poverty of pre–Revolutionary Paris, and ultimately to her destiny as one of the founding mothers of Louisiana.

France, 1718: Three years after Louis XIV's death, the country is still reeling from the Sun King's costly wars and reckless extravagance. While ordinary citizens struggle to survive, the wealthy are able to purchase noble titles that grant them power and privilege. In the wrong hands, that power can be a terrible thing, as Azélie and her older sister Nicole discover when their family's roadside inn becomes the property of a corrupt judge.

After a harrowing encounter with the judge's loathsome son, Azélie's only option is to flee. Then a chance meeting with highway robber Jules Charavany leads the two to make their way to Paris. Azélie launders clothes on the banks of the Seine while Jules finds work on the docks, and a friendship borne of necessity evolves into a deeper bond. But when Jules is wrongly arrested, Azélie finds herself caught up in a scheme to arrest young women on trumped-up charges and exile them to the struggling colonies along the Gulf Coast.

Chained aboard the ship La Mutine, a pregnant Azélie finds kinship with the other women during the perilous ocean crossing. The survivors will witness the birth of a new city, New Orleans. And though her new life will be rich in challenge and reward, Azélie's ties to her homeland and her family will remain, echoing through the future in unpredictable ways, even centuries later.