1876. An Irish orphan with a dark past, young Fiona Shanahan emigrates to America and finds a safe haven where she reinvents herself. A lucky encounter lands her a spot on the Broadway stage, becoming a rising star until she flees to Chicago after a violent encounter. Theater magnate Julius DeMonte, offers her sanctuary aboard his showboat, Queen of Dreams, on its maiden voyage down the Mississippi. As they travel southward to New Orleans, Fiona discovers the reality of post-civil war America, very different from the glittering stages of Gilded Age New York. But Julius is far more than a simple theater producer, just as Fiona is far more than a naïve ingenue, and as she becomes entwined in Julius's world and its intrigues, Fiona finds herself in greater danger than she's ever known before.