How far would you go for love? When George Collinson meets Eloise at the Governor's mansion in Sydney, it is love at first sight. But Eloise is married to Edward Cadwallader George's nemesis, and a man capable of great brutality. Family secrets threaten to overwhelm them, and as George and Eloise struggle to keep their love alive, other battles are raging. Pioneers jostling for land fight each other as well as the Aboriginal warriors, whose stone-age weapons are no match for the invaders guns. A rebellious Irish boy, who arrived in the colony in chains, becomes deeply involved in a revolutionary cause and two women struggle for survival and friendship in the unlikeliest of places.