In the quiet, orderly streets of 1790s Philadelphia, Julien Dubois has painstakingly built a new life, hoping to forever escape the bloody legacy of a powerful family he renounced in disgust. He finds a fragile peace and a deep love with Élise Moreau, a brilliant botanist whose own past is tied by an unspoken tragedy to the very place Julien fled: the brutal sugar colony of Saint-Domingue. Together with Élise's father, a man scarred by a history of his own on that tormented island, they have forged a sanctuary against the sorrows of the past.
But the past will not stay buried. When a malicious, false accusation nearly costs Julien his freedom, their world is shaken. Soon after, a desperate plea arrives, smuggled out from the fiery heart of the Haitian Revolution. An innocent man from Julien's youth, the one figure of decency he ever knew, is set to face the guillotine, and only Julien can speak for him. Drawn back by a debt of honor into the revolutionary inferno he swore he would never return to, Julien finds himself in a city gripped by terror and paranoia.
In Cap-Français, under the watchful eye of the fanatical Citizen Valois, his carefully constructed identity is shattered, and he is unmasked as an enemy of the revolution, imprisoned and condemned. With time running out and all official avenues closed, Élise must risk everything to save the man she loves. Her only hope lies in a desperate gambit proposed by an unlikely ally: Theodore Cole, a cynical, brilliant, and hard-drinking lawyer from Philadelphia who harbors his own complex secrets.
As a relentless revolutionary with a personal vendetta closes in, they are faced with an unbearable choice. In a world where justice is served by the blade, survival will demand a sacrifice more profound than any of them can imagine. Can one man's desperate courage redeem a name written in blood?