Scent of Cloves

Julia Ashley was born to a life of dramatic twists and tragedy. Her future and any possible lasting happiness depended entirely on a “glove marriage” to a man who was no more than a name. The Dutch East Indies in the seventeenth century were the lands of legendary riches; of “nutmeg princes”; of fortunes built on barbaric plantations and slavery. And amid the extravagance the cruelty the bizarre customs perhaps the strangest events of all were the curious weddings that sent girls half-way around the world to husbands they had never seen. Julia took her “glove” - of yellow pearl-sewn silk - and began the journey to the island of Rua to a land of seeming paradise where nothing was exactly as it appeared.