Seventeen-year-old Hoshi'tiwa had a simple life: The daughter of a humble corn grower, she planned to marry a storyteller's apprentice. But her world is turned upside down when she is captured by the powerful and violent ruler of an infamous city with legends of untold wealth and unspeakable acts of violence to its name. Hoshi'tiwa is suddenly thrown into the court of the Dark Lord, and as she struggles for power, she begins an illicit affair with...

Tells two intertwining stories, both centering on Okonkwo, a "strong man" of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first, a tale of conflict between the individual and society, traces Okonkwo's fall from grace with the tribal world. The second concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world with the arrival of aggressive European missionaries.