This adventure of a novel opens in 1853 when Virginia Reeve, former guide to the Western Frontier, is tasked with leading twelve women into the Arctic to search for Lady Franklin's husband and his missing expedition. A year later, Virginia is charged with murder and only five survivors are willing to attend her trial. As the narrative alternates between revelations of the past and the development of Virginia's trial, we learn along with this cast of diverse and fierce women that when women stop worrying about society's expectations they are "capable of nearly anything."