Born in a brothel in Paris in the early 1700s, Madeleine's future had been decided by her courtesan mother and Madame Claudine. Her innocence at age fourteen would be sold to the highest bidder. She'd be treated as a usable and disposable toy to fulfill her patron's every perverted desire until he tires of her. Then she'd become a courtesan to entertain anyone who visits the brothel.

Madeleine dreams of a better future. She runs away and finds temporary refuge in a convent, but she doesn't have too many options when she turns eighteen. Either going back to the brothel, becoming a servant with an uncertain future, living her life as a nun, or becoming a filles à la cassette, one of the King's Casket Girls, since no reputable man would marry her in France with nothing to her name. To escape her gloomy future, she sails to the New World with hopes for a better life.

What will her future hold? Will she find happiness?