description
5This is a tale of two women, separated by over four hundred years, whose lives are inexorably intertwined.
Karen is a goal-driven pre-med student pursued by two men. Well-bred and wealthy, Martin aligns with her upward ambitions. Peter, her virtuous but poor blue-collar study partner, is loyal and kind but socially inept. After a series of relationship stumbles, an accidental pregnancy forces vacillating Karen to choose Peter. She tries to commit to him, however, after a decade of marriage, nurse practitioner Karen is depressed. Convinced her blue-collar trailer park life has become a mausoleum of mediocrity, she makes some bad decisions which place her in grave danger.
Mariken awakens with amnesia in 1572 Antwerp during the early stages of the Eighty Years' War. Taken in by kind Mennists, she discovers she has a physician's gift for healing. She meets and falls in love with Pieter, an injured blacksmith with a mysterious past of his own. Unfortunately, her haunting history, inability to remain quietly obscure, and the rising violence against Mennists combine to threaten her safety. Soon, Mariken and her friends, Maeyken Wens, Lijsken, and Janneken van Munstdorp are suspected of heresy and witchcraft.
How are these two women connected? Will either survive the situations they've placed themselves in?