Follow a new generation of the Dutton family during the early twentieth century when pandemics, historic drought, the end of Prohibition and the Great Depression all plague the mountain west, and the Duttons who call it home.

Young Theo is sent on his first trip with his Maltese sea faring family, but things go terribly wrong when the 'Simshar' sinks, leaving the crew stranded in the Mediterranean... Simultaneously, Alex - a medic reluctantly dispatched onto a Turkish Merchant vessel which has rescued a group of stranded African boat people between Malta and Italy - gets stuck on the boat as the countries wage a bureaucratic war over who should take in the migrants... The stories unravel in parallel and culminate tragically when the fishermen are traced down, but by that time there's only one survivor.

A historical drama set in Roman Egypt, concerning philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria and her relationship with her slave Davus, who is torn between his love for her and the possibility of gaining his freedom by joining the rising tide of Christianity.