For the first time in her life, Karen Williams is out from under her parents' watchful eyes. Now a goal-driven pre-med freshman who tends to put her own desires ahead of the feelings of those who love her, she is 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, dissatisfied nurse practitioner Karen is depressed. Convinced her blue-collar trailer park life has become a mausoleum of mediocrity, she makes some bad decisions. One of those bad decisions is Lamont, a well-to-do attorney. With the lurking presence of a serial killer, her choices 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.
What are the consequences of these two women's decisions? Will either survive?
'"She had a suitcase?"
"Yeah, she pulled one out of the car when she arrived. I was paying so much attention to her dress, I didn't see much else."
Peter could barely breathe on his drive home. He headed straight to the bedroom closet. The suitcase was gone. The cocktail dress was gone. Her new erotic lingerie was not in the drawer. There wasn't a note laying in the usual place on the kitchen counter. His wife was gone. He collapsed on the bed holding her satin nightgown to his face, smelling her essence, broken. Unrelenting images of the love of his life in another man's bed, willingly sharing her body in the most intimate ways, torturing him.
"Where are you? What have you done?"'
"A drunken soldier stumbled out of the alley, buttoning his cod sack after urinating. He grabbed Mariken around the waist from behind and tried to kiss her. "You're a comely wench. Let's step into the alley and get acquainted."
Mariken shrieked. Her fight or flight reflexes erupted. It was all over in a few seconds. She spun and drove his chin up with the heel of her hand, half severing his tongue. With the speed of lightning, she punched his throat with her other fist then kneed him in the groin. In the span of a single gasp, the soldier lay on the cobblestones struggling to breathe, choking on his own blood. Maeyken grabbed her arm and pulled her down the street before the soldier's startled comrades could react.
When Mariken turned back, Maeyken saw a look of fear and ferocity in her eyes only a trapped animal would have. "Of all the women on the street, why did he single me out to grab?"
"I suppose it is your hair. Because of your wound, we have not tied it up properly. Usually, only women advertising loose morality wear unbound hair in public." Remembering the indoor jousting, Maeyken thought to herself, Surrounded by ruffians, indeed."
