Oman 1959 - Pre oil wealth and under the old Sultan's tyrannical rule. Young doctor James McRae is looking for adventure. He takes up a post at the British Consulate and finds a country riddled in witchcraft and medieval practices. A forbidden encounter with the young wife of an elderly sheikh changes the course of his once carefree life forever. Canterbury 1985 - Art student Charlotte Brett Sinclair is besotted by Marcus, her rugby player boyfriend. When they marry and move to a villa in Muscat the future looks rosy. Ambitious Marcus has a glittering career ahead in international banking. But the excesses of the Middle East, and echoes from an untold past, conspire to bring about a very different destiny. Sheikh's grandson Juma Al Ghafira was born in a mud fort in the desert. Oil concessions granted on tribal lands bring unimagined prosperity - an English public school education and a Cambridge degree. But when Juma's two worlds collide he is forced to choose between his duty and the woman he loves.