Los adversarios

Late 18th century in Mockbeggar, a cluster of houses clinging to the frozen coast of northern Newfoundland. Abe Strapp, dissolute heir to the largest merchant house in the area, is about to marry the daughter of a rival trader to cement his dominion over the entire bay. But on his wedding day, the person he despises most in the world bursts in: his own sister, Widow Caines, who wears her dead husband's clothes, smokes a pipe, and, flouting the laws that deny women property rights, has seized control of the second largest business on the coast. With a single revelation, she blows up the wedding. It is the first shot in a war that will rage for years: brother and sister become embroiled in a spiral of sabotage and revenge, fighting for increasingly scarce resources and forcing the entire town to take sides.