In M.M. Kaye's Trade Wind, when Boston bluestocking Hero Athena Hollis travels to Zanzibar to visit her uncle, an American consul, she arrives filled with self-righteousness and bent on good deeds. She believes that slavery is wrong and determined to do what she can to stop it. But she soon finds that maintaining her ideals is not so easy.

Then she meets Rory Frost, a cynical, wicked, shrewd and good-humored trader in slaves. What is Hero to make of him—and of her feelings for him?