Having apprenticed under her uncle, Willa Monroe runs the blacksmith shop all on her own, which was almost unheard of for a woman to do in 1870. She has to defend her honor at every turn, which is likely why the young men of Mystic, Connecticut, consider her shrewish. When injustice is wrought upon a new friend, she discovers that it’s not only her honor that needs defending.Miles Honoré left Canada after the death of his wife. Being is new to Mystic, Connecticut, he has to navigate his way through the customs of his former country. He’d forgotten how black men were often treated in America. But the affections of a new friend remind him that not everyone judges a person by the color of his skin.

After her father's death, Chloe Monroe takes over her father's fishing boat and business.. She has to endure ridicule and scorn, being the only fishwife in a market of fishmongers. But that may be easier than returning the affections of one Jamie Harrison and his persistent attempts to win her heart. James has to find a better way to support his mother and sisters and pay off his father's exorbitant debt than through the wages of a longshoreman. Since Chloe, the one person keeping him in Connecticut, has no plans to return his affections, and since the promise of pay is so much, James embarks on a three year whaling expedition. But is whaling really for him? A different skill altogether may steer his destiny.

1875 Poet and lighthouse keeper, Phillis Monroe, deeply enjoys the solitude necessary to explore the spiritual and mystical side of life. She loves how her half sisters call her the mystic of Mystic, Connecticut. So why is she this eager to pursue the boxer from the Pequot reservation in Noank? Benjamin Baker, known as Awahsohs to his tribe in Noank, and as Bear to nearly every boxer from New York to Boston, is caught in a fight beside his uncle’s church. His mother and uncle send him away to the Brotherton Movement in upstate New York. But he doesn’t become the man of the cloth that everyone hopes him to be. He leaves his four years of instruction to pursue the young woman whose poetry makes more sense to him than all the teachings of that seminary. But how could a mystic ever love a fighter?