Austria, 1767: Maria Carolina Charlotte --- the 10th daughter and one of 16 children of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria --- knows her position as a Habsburg archduchess will inevitably force her to leave her home, family and cherished sister, Antoinette, whose companionship she values over all else. But not yet. The Habsburg family is celebrating a great triumph: Charlotte’s older sister, Josepha, has been promised to King Ferdinand IV of Naples and will soon take her place as queen. Before she can journey to her new home, however, tragedy strikes. After visiting the family crypt, Josepha contracts smallpox and dies. Shocked, Charlotte is forced to face an unthinkable new reality: she now must marry Ferdinand in her sister’s stead.

Destiny toys with us all, but Anita Garibaldi is a force to be reckoned with. Forced into marriage at a young age, Anita feels trapped in a union she does not want. But when she meets the leader of the Brazilian resistance, Giuseppe Garibaldi, in 1839, everything changes. Swept into a passionate affair with the idolized mercenary, Anita's life is suddenly consumed by the plight to liberate Southern Brazil from Portugal --- a struggle that would cost thousands of lives and span almost 10 bloody years. Little did she know that this first taste of revolution would lead her to cross oceans, traverse continents and alter the course of her entire life --- and the world.