The second novel of the visceral Divided Kingdom series sees the action turn westwards to Bristol, where a Royalist army is determined to wrest the city from the forces of Parliament.

Once again, the story revolves around the vicious enmity of the Reeve brothers: carefree and dissolute Ralph and embittered and fanatical Francis. Also caught up in the conflict are Moussa Dansocko, an African slave accused of sorcery, Kendall Tremain, Cornish fisherman and tinner, Abel Cowans, a former naval gunner from Newcastle and others, all with their own diverse reasons for siding with one cause or the other in Englands bloody civil war.