When Juliette marries Jean, she comes to live with him aboard the barge "L'Atalante", where they travel along the Seine River. The bride, becomes bored and leaves the ship for Paris where she starts flirting with other men.

After twelve years of marriage to English explorer James Cook, Elizabeth has yet to spend an entire year with her husband. In their house by the Thames, she moves to the rhythms of her life as a society wife, but there is so much more to her than meets the eye. She has the fortitude to manage the house and garden, raise their children, and face unbearable sorrow by herself--in fact, she is sometimes in thrall to her own independence. As she prepares...