Set in the era of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, in Kororāreka (Russell) a lawless outpost in a wild country.
Maggie Flynn leaves Ireland a convict and arrives in Kororāreka the captain of a whaling ship. When burying her husband on the shores of this land she is captured by a Māori chief and becomes his mōkai, a prestige slave more akin to a pet. An unthinkable intimacy burns between her and the chief until her fateful rescue where she loses all she has held dear. Her fortune continuing to twist and turn Maggie becomes a force facilitating the burgeoning trade between Māori and European settlers, the publican and madam of the notorious King Edward Hotel. One day culture and history collide and her ultimate undoing is the very world she sought to escape.