Brilliant and charismatic, Rupert Willows is among the best of liars. Not even his wife knows his true identity.

Overnight fortunes are being made in1890s Winnipeg and Rupert wants his share of the action. Known as the Chicago of the North for its grand theatres and elegant architecture, Winnipeg is also a raucous, bawdy boomtown with a taste for fast money, loose women, and dirty politics.

Rupert boldly schemes his way into the ranks of the elite class of men who run the city when he beats out the competition to buy the mansion, Ravenscraig Hall. True power and vast riches can be his, as long as his secret stays buried.

Across town, Zev Zigman mounts a desperate struggle to bring his family out of tsarist Russia to settle in the overcrowded squalor of Winnipeg's North End. His young niece, a plucky orphan, arrives from London and risks everything when she hides her Jewish roots to enter the world of "The English" as Maisie, the new maid at Ravenscraig.

Scandal, romance, and the Titanic tragedy will determine the fates of both families as their lives become entwined in this historical romance and family saga.