Recently orphaned, Audry Tappan is put under the protection of her sister and brother-in-law and taken to the New World in 1587, to live in a new English colony led by Governor John White. Wanting nothing of the life that has been chosen for her, Audry struggles to survive in the grueling conditions demanded of her on the mysterious island of Roanoke. The colony is left to fend for itself when Governor White returns to England to fetch supplies, and it is not until the threads begin to unravel that Audry learns she must adapt or perish. Facing the unforgiving elements, the Natives, and an outbreak of typhoid fever, the settlers quickly find that they are not in England any longer, and help may not ever be coming back. In a world where both nature and the settlers themselves are bearing down, Audry must try to rise above the fraying colony in order to live and keep close the love she has found.