Sassy Winthrop has just turned twenty-one. But instead of being a time of fun, parties, and courting, it has been a time of loss, grief, and transitions. With the death of her beloved father, a kindly country vicar, Sassy is left not only without immediate family, but she must also leave the only home she has ever known to make room for the new vicar. And if that weren't enough, she is also going through transition as her powers of light magic are completed.

When a friend of her late mother arranges for Sassy to become a tutor at Netherby Halls, a boarding school for genteel orphaned girls, it seems the perfect solution. But as she makes the journey to Netherby she meets the man who has been making love to her in her dreams…the irresistible Marquis of Dartmour. And that is only the beginning.

For finds things at Netherby are not what they seem, and neither is the handsome marquis. Unsure whom to trust, Sassy has to find her way through a maze of evil and magic.