Paris, 1720. La Salpêtrière hospital is in crisis: too many occupants, not enough beds. Halfway across the world, France's colony in the wilds of North America has space to spare. So the director of the hospital rounds up nearly a hundred female "volunteers" of childbearing age to be shipped to New Orleans. Strangers brought together by fate, these brave and fierce young women will face extraordinary adversity but also the private trauma of heartbreak and unrequited love, children born and lost, cruelty and unexpected pleasure, and a friendship forged in fire that will sustain through the years.
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