Her fiery beauty was a burden, her passion a curse

Joanna Coke was the apple of her father's eye. And while his lowly position could never protect her from the advances of men who lusted after her, Joanna's own spirited loveliness was more than a challenge.

From the pastoral village where she bloomed to beauty, to the squalor of a seedy London teeming with wine-soaked noblemen and cunning wenches, Joanna made her way, never escaping the dark passions that pursued and inflamed her - and never forgetting the one man whom she touched with love....