England, 1364: When married off at the age of 12 to an elderly farmer, brazen redheaded Eleanor quickly realizes it won’t matter what she says or does. She was born under the joint signs of Venus and Mars, making her both a lover and a fighter. Aided by a head for business (and a surprisingly kind husband), Eleanor manages to turn her first marriage into success, and she rises through society from a cast-off farm girl to a woman of fortune who becomes a trusted friend of the social-climbing poet Geoffrey Chaucer. But more marriages follow, several pilgrimages, numerous lovers, murder, mayhem and many turns of fortune’s wheel as Eleanor pursues the one thing that all women want: control of their own lives.

1405: The daughter of a wealthy merchant, Anneke Sheldrake suddenly finds her family bankrupted when her father’s ship is swept away at sea. Forced to find a way to provide for herself and her siblings, Anneke rejects an offer of marriage from a despised cousin and instead turns to her late mother’s family business: brewing ale. Armed with her mother’s recipes, she then makes a bold deal with her father’s aristocratic employer, putting her home and family at risk. Thanks to her fierce determination, Anneke’s brew wins a following and begins to turn a profit. But her rise threatens some in her community, and those closest to her are left to pay the price. As Anneke slowly pieces her life together again, she finds an unlikely ally in a London brothel owner.

Sir Everard Blithman, a canny merchant, offers Rosamund Tomkins --- the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman --- an “opportunity like no other,” becoming the linchpin that will drive the success of his fledgling business: a luxurious London chocolate house where wealthy and well-connected men come to see and be seen. Rosamund adapts and thrives in her new surroundings, quickly becoming the most talked-about woman in society. But she knows nothing of the mortal peril that comes with her new title, nor of the forces spinning a web of conspiracy buried in the past, until she meets a man whose return tightens their grip upon her, threatening to destroy everything she loves and damn her to a dire fate.

Mallory Bright is the only daughter of London's most ingenious locksmith, and has apprenticed with her father since childhood. After scandal destroys her reputation, Mallory has returned to her father's home and lives almost as a recluse. But Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's spymaster and a frequent client of Mallory's father, draws her into his world of danger and deception. Mallory's loyalty wavers when she witnesses the brutal and bloody public execution of three Jesuit priests and realizes the human cost of her espionage. And later, when she discovers the identity of a Catholic spy and a conspiracy that threatens the kingdom, she is forced to choose between her country and her heart.