1920: While the ravages of the Great War are still tormenting people’s memories, André, 18, has to bury his mother, who died of disease.

Penniless, and now entirely on his own, he refuses to accept the mediocre life that fate seems to have in store for him. Tempted to seek adventure in the remote Amazon region, his imagination stoked by a circus that has come to his small town, he still has to toil alongside the village blacksmith to earn a living.

How can he escape poverty? How can he follow his dreams? And how, most of all, can he become as rich as the Jourdans, the wealthy family that employed his mother for so many years?

Torn between his aspirations and his limited means, fueled by both love and hate, André will stop at nothing in order to transform his fate.

In this new novel by Myriam Chirousse, readers will recognize the power of passionate love, the presence of nature, a dark romanticism and a few light touches of almost Gothic fantasy… all coming together to paint a picture in which strange twists of fate reign supreme.