The main character in this story, Bess Fones is a freedom-loving, independent English woman whose personality tends to get her into trouble in the strict and religious environment of her family and community during a tumultuous time in history.
Bess does not like being under the authoritative thumb of John Winthrop and deliberately makes decisions that she knows will inflame him. Although she is in love with her first cousin, Jack, she marries his wilder brother, Harry, even though her family is outraged. She deliberately insults a suitor to whom she has been promised and eventually marries the effeminate and crazy Robert Feake because she feels she can control him better. Bess is a kind woman who wants something more from her life than the usual drudgery assigned to women of her day......
