Among the passengers on the latest Danube River sailing of the Emerald Sun are the following. Joe Alexander and his travel companion Reynolds are on a work trip to get donations of royal art for a charity auction. Ava Micallief, the manager of a private art gallery in Chicago, was encouraged by her boss to take this sailing as she was supposed to sail a year ago as her honeymoon which never happened in she proverbially being left at the altar. With Ava's raincheck for the cruise about to expire, her boss felt that it would be something to help her heal from that experience, she having been in a funk ever since. Ava has her own side art mission for this cruise in wanting to view the work of up and coming artist Tobias Hofler. Joe and Ava meet and make a connection on the cruise, not only in their shared love of especially modern art, but as humans as they start to fall in love with each other. What will affect if they have a future after the cruise is something that Joe and Reynolds are keeping secret from everyone on board except the Captain in being Reynolds' friend, a secret of this magnitude which Ava may not forgive in she already having trust issues: Joe, incognito, is really Duke József of Baldonia, first in line for the throne, Reynolds a royal valet. The proverbial black sheep of the family, József is not only on the art collection mission on this cruise, but, in what is the seeming lifelong battle of wills with his father, the King, has to come to an imminent decision if he will eventually assume the role of King when the time comes, or pass the title onto his younger brother, Maximilian.
—Huggo