Aemilia Bassano, daughter of an Italian musician at the Elizabethan Court, has ambitions to gain a place in aristocratic society and also to enter the artistic world of poetry and music exclusive to men. Her love for the theatre brings her into contact with William Shakespeare, and her entanglement with the actor/playwright, his rich libertine patron the Earl of Southampton, the magician Simon Forman, the charismatic Earl of Essex and the musician Alfonso Lanier, results in intrigue, jealous rivalries, deceit and betrayal, culminating in the publication of an unconventional book of poems.