Eleanor Blunt is one of 50,000 women serving as colonial officials and officers in the Avalon Empire a colonial empire. The Governor of the Near Eastern crown colony of Yizria, she has to deal with the ethnic and religious tensions and differences between the Yizrites who worship Yavadah, and the Telvanites who worship Alvadah. She hates journalists, bureaucrats, and the hot weather, but loves reading, horseback riding and bare knuckle boxing.