A young schoolteacher in the Vendee in the 1890s, Victorine is married with two young children. But when she falls desperately in love with a customs officer she abandons her family for her lover and a new life in Indochina. On a single day in 1940, as Victorine reflects on her past, we travel back with her to that extraordinary period of her life - a remarkable story which explores a woman's struggle between duty and independence, tradition and freedom. This is a lush, lyrical and evocative novel that takes the reader from the willow-lined canals of Vendee to the sun-drenched days and languorous nights along the Mekong River at the dawn of the twentieth century.