1901. Night draws in. With the stealth of a spy vessel, the royal ship Azizye approaches the famous vistas of Mingheria. 'An emerald build of pink stone'. The 29th state of the ailing Ottoman Empire. The ship carries Princess Pakize, the daughter of a deposed sultan, her doctor husband, and the Royal Chemist, Bonkowski Pasha. Each of them holds a separate mission. Not all of them will survive the weeks ahead. Because Mingheria is on the cusp of catastrophe....

1579: Hannah Levi, a Venetian exile, has set up a new life for herself as the best midwife in all of Constantinople, tending to the thousand women of the Sultan's lively and infamous harem. One night, when Hannah is unexpectedly summoned to the palace, she's confronted with Leah, a poor Jewish peasant girl who has been abducted and sold into the harem. The Sultan wants her to produce his heir, but the girl just wants to return to her home and the...