The year is 1584 and fourteen-year-old Kit survives as a thief on the streets of Elizabethan London – very different from his early childhood when he lived a privileged life with his wealthy Catholic parents, who died when he was very young. The memory of his parents haunts Kit: his father was executed for a plot to assassinate the Queen, but went to his death proclaiming his innocence. When Kit meets John White, a cartographer and associate of Walter Raleigh, in the streets and White offers him a place in his household, Kit accepts. Soon Kit is aboard the Tiger with White, bound for the New World, as part of an expedition to establish a new colony in Virginia. After surviving many weeks at sea, a fierce storm, and encounters with the Spanish along the American coast, the Tiger finally arrives in Virginia and the settlers found a colony at Roanoke. Life in the colony is hard, and relations with the native tribes become dangerous due to the aggression of some English settlers. As trade with the tribes collapses and winter approaches, food becomes scarce and the settlers struggle to survive. And Kit’s past resurfaces when an enemy is suddenly revealed . . .