"In 1649, Jan Brunt arrives in Great Britain from the Netherlands to work on draining and developing an expanse of wetlands known as the Great Level. Here he meets Eliza, a local woman whose love overturns his ordered vision. Determined to help her thrive beyond her situation, Jan is heedless of her devotion to her home and way of life. When she uses the education Jan has given her to sabotage his work, Eliza is brutally punished, and Jan flees to the New World. In the American colonies, settlers on Manatus Eylandt are hungry for land to develop, and Jan's skills as an engineer are prized. His new life is rattled, however, on a spring morning when a boy delivers a note that prompts him to confront all he lost on the Great Level. Eliza has made it to the New World and is again drawing on Jan's teachings to bend the landscape--and find her own place of freedom."--Provided by publisher.