Jane is seventeen, rebellious and beautiful. Her betrothal to Samuel Reeves, a worthy but pompous medical student, makes the two families rejoice. But Jane is unsure; she only knows she is happier with Tom, her father's lively apprentice.
Her father, William Verney, is an esteemed London apothecary, glad to have established a safe future for his worrisome daughter. But his careful planning is overturned by something he cannot control: the Plague. All who can, flee the disease-stricken city, but Verney's greed overpowers caution, and the city gates close on him and his family by the time the first rat scampers across his cellar.
In a desperate attempt to atone, he sends Jane away in Tom's care before the house is sealed and the dreaded red cross painted on the door. The two young people must somehow escape from a city of terror, whose cobbled streets are alive with rogues and murdering thieves, where kindness is superceded by brutality and stark fear.
In this strongly atmospheric novel, Marie Joseph vividly conveys the horror of London in 1665. It is a time of trial which is to turn a cossetted and self-willed girl into a compassionate and thoughtful woman, free to make her own life with the man she loves.
