Emmeline Nevada Holtz was the richest -- and most sheltered--girl in America. She has been arranged to be married to one of England's wealthy dukes. An accident to her chaperone gives her temporarily alone in Paris, and Emmeline realized that this was her one chance to experience life in a way she never had before.

Her determination to enjoy her new-found freedom would lead Emmeline to some of the most dissolute pleasure palaces in Paris and to social acquaintances whose respectability was just a front for a most horrifying evil. But it would also lead her straight into the arms of Pierre, an artist and the only man she would ever love.