London, 1803. The moment Hester Urquhart sees Luke Wainwright she is enchanted but not much later she wishes she had never set eyes on him, especially when they are forced into a marriage neither wants. Mere hours before they are to make their vows in the sight of God and Mama and Papa and her very best friend Deborah he announces: "I have a cabin booked on the 'Cambray' bound for Tahiti," apparently intending to leave her to endure the pity of so-called friends Not likely. Luke's dream of painting in Polynesia is jeopardised by an unwanted marriage until he comes up with the perfect solution: a more than generous allowance and the loving oversight of his own family as well as the bride's. But she spurns the idea. Insists on sailing with him. Will not be dissuaded. Worse, she is a poor sailor and all he can do is wrap her in blankets, insist she drink to replenish the liquid oozing out of her, and hold her in his arms. Yet an alliance is born and becomes a love-story, nurtured with joy and strengthened by sorrow on a far-away Polynesian island, a speck in a never-ending sea. The Southern Seas Series tells the stories of men and women who - for all sorts of reasons - find themselves on remote coral islands in the 1800's. They are seafarers and teachers, missionaries and traders, adventurers, botanists, artists. They encounter joy and sorrow, beauty and hardship, but most of all life in its fullness.