Danielle Michele Fleming, 10 year old daughter of a French aristocratic mother, and the second son of English gentry, finds herself caught in the economic ruin that surrounds the failure of the Bourbon Monarchy. Without the surety of her mother's lands in France, Danielle's uncle forecloses on loans he holds for his brother. Her privileged life erodes into abject poverty and orphan. She finds herself aboard ship, destined for the Queen's Bush of Upper Canada and a life with the catalyst of her doom, her uncle, Edgar Fleming.