The Orphan of Good Hope

From the author of the bestselling The Pearler's Wife, a riveting novel of seventeenth-century romance and intrigue that sweeps the reader from the canals of Amsterdam, across the waves, to the rough-and-tumble frontier town at the Cape of Good Hope. In 1683 life is gruelling for the young women in Amsterdam s civic orphanage. The sole light in Johanna Timmerman s existence is her forbidden love for Frans, an orphan in the boys section who has a smile like sunshine. Then he is gone, whisked across the globe to the Dutch East India Company s nascent colony at Good Hope. Floriane Peronneau s privileged world is pleasant and fulfilling until she discovers that it is all built on lies. Far from being the devoted gentleman he seems, her husband Claes is a womanizing degenerate who has led them to the edge of ruin. And the forces are closing in on him. While Johanna s love drives her to make a shocking bargain to secure passage to the Cape, Floriane is caught in a terrifying game of cat and mouse. The two women s lives could not be more different. Yet, on the long, dangerous voyage to the southern tip of Africa, they will become the best of friends and co-conspirators.